Red Hat Streams for Apache Kafka 2.9 End of Life: October 31, 2026

By Scott Bissett  ·  Published: October 19, 2026  ·  Reference guide  ·  Dates read twice on the day of publication, from Red Hat's Product Life Cycle Data API and from the rendered Product Life Cycles page at access.redhat.com, and re-checked at every site build; phase definitions from Red Hat's Application Services Product Update and Support Policy; the ZooKeeper change from Red Hat's Streams for Apache Kafka 3.0 release notes.

Red Hat ends Maintenance Support for Streams for Apache Kafka 2.9 on October 31, 2026. Streams for Apache Kafka is the product Red Hat sold as AMQ Streams until it was renamed in 2024. Red Hat's product life cycle table shows 2.9 in Maintenance Support, after Full Support ended on March 31, 2026, with no Extended Life Cycle Support phase after it. The date matters more than a routine version end: Red Hat's 3.0 release notes say 2.9.x is the last version compatible with Kafka clusters that use ZooKeeper, so leaving 2.9 means migrating to KRaft first. Live status and EOL Risk Score are on the Streams for Apache Kafka 2.9 page; every version is on the Streams for Apache Kafka page.

Key Dates at a Glance

• Streams for Apache Kafka 2.9: Full Support ends 2026-03-31; Maintenance Support ends 2026-10-31
• Streams for Apache Kafka 3.2: Full Support ends 2027-05-31; Maintenance Support ends 2027-11-30

The dates, as Red Hat prints them

These rows come from the Streams for Apache Kafka entry in Red Hat's product life cycle data, read through Red Hat's API and on the rendered page. Red Hat marks 2.9 "Originally available as 2.0" and 3.2 "Originally available as 3.0": each line carries the general availability date of its family, not of the minor release, so this guide does not quote one.

Red Hat's table lists the same OpenShift Container Platform versions for 2.9 and 3.2.

What the phases mean

Red Hat's Application Services Product Update and Support Policy, which covers Streams for Apache Kafka, defines them:

• Full Support: all available and qualified patches are applied through periodic product updates and cumulative patches, or as required for qualified security patches rated Critical, Important, or Moderate with a CVSS score of 7 or higher.
• Maintenance Support: production and development support continue under the published scope of coverage, and qualified security patches of Critical or Important impact, as well as select mission-critical bug-fix patches, are released. This is where 2.9 has been since March 31, 2026.
• Extended Life Support: an add-on subscription for some Application Services products. Red Hat lists it as N/A for every Streams for Apache Kafka version, so there is no paid phase after October 31, 2026.

One rule applies in every phase: the policy says defect and security fixes are provided only for the latest minor, micro or cumulative patch release, so staying supported on 2.9 until the end date means staying on the newest 2.9.x patch release.

Why 2.9 is a migration, not an upgrade

Red Hat's release notes for Streams for Apache Kafka 3.0 set out the change. Kafka 4.0 runs only in KRaft mode, without ZooKeeper; Kafka 3.9 was the last Kafka version to support ZooKeeper; and so 2.9.x is the last Streams for Apache Kafka version compatible with Kafka clusters using ZooKeeper. The same notes say support for ZooKeeper-based clusters has been removed, and that to upgrade to 3.0 or later, clusters must first be migrated to KRaft mode.

For a team still running ZooKeeper-based clusters on 2.9, the work before October 31, 2026 is therefore two steps: migrate each cluster to KRaft while still on 2.9, then upgrade to 3.2. The 3.0 release notes also said dynamic controller quorums were not supported on OpenShift, so KRaft clusters there used static controller quorums; check the release notes for the version you move to before planning the controller layout.

What to do

1. List every cluster on 2.9 and whether it still uses ZooKeeper.
2. Stay on the newest 2.9.x patch release until you move: Red Hat ships fixes only for the latest release.
3. Migrate ZooKeeper-based clusters to KRaft on 2.9, following Red Hat's migration documentation, before upgrading.
4. Upgrade to Streams for Apache Kafka 3.2, which has Full Support until May 31, 2027 and Maintenance Support until November 30, 2027.
5. Check related products: the Streams for Apache Kafka page re-reads Red Hat's data, the Apache Kafka page covers upstream Kafka lines, and the EOL Checker answers for a single version.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related

• Streams for Apache Kafka (Red Hat AMQ Streams) — every version and its dates
• Apache Kafka — the upstream release lines
• Apache Kafka end of life — how the upstream project supports its releases
• Red Hat AMQ Broker — the other AMQ messaging product's dates
• Red Hat support explained — life cycle phases and subscriptions