---
title: kafka.to() function
description: >
  `kafka.to()` sends data to [Apache Kafka](https://kafka.apache.org/) brokers.
menu:
  flux_v0_ref:
    name: kafka.to
    parent: kafka
    identifier: kafka/to
weight: 101
flux/v0/tags: [outputs]
---

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`kafka.to()` sends data to [Apache Kafka](https://kafka.apache.org/) brokers.



##### Function type signature

```js
(
    <-tables: stream[A],
    brokers: [string],
    topic: string,
    ?balancer: string,
    ?name: string,
    ?nameColumn: string,
    ?tagColumns: [string],
    ?timeColumn: string,
    ?valueColumns: [string],
) => stream[A] where A: Record
```

{{% caption %}}
For more information, see [Function type signatures](/flux/v0/function-type-signatures/).
{{% /caption %}}

## Parameters

### brokers
({{< req >}})
List of Kafka brokers to send data to.



### topic
({{< req >}})
Kafka topic to send data to.



### balancer

Kafka load balancing strategy. Default is `hash`.

The load balancing strategy determines how messages are routed to partitions
available on a Kafka cluster. The following strategies are available:
- **hash**: Uses a hash of the group key to determine which Kafka
partition to route messages to. This ensures that messages generated from
rows in the table are routed to the same partition.
- **round-robin**: Equally distributes messages across all available partitions.
- **least-bytes**: Routes messages to the partition that has received the
least amount of data.

### name

Kafka metric name. Default is the value of the `nameColumn`.



### nameColumn

Column to use as the Kafka metric name.
Default is `_measurement`.



### timeColumn

Time column. Default is `_time`.



### tagColumns

List of tag columns in input data.



### valueColumns

List of value columns in input data. Default is `["_value"]`.



### tables

Input data. Default is piped-forward data (`<-`).




## Examples

### Send data to Kafka

```js
import "kafka"
import "sampledata"

sampledata.int()
    |> kafka.to(
        brokers: ["http://127.0.0.1:9092"],
        topic: "example-topic",
        name: "example-metric-name",
        tagColumns: ["tag"],
    )

```