# tKafkaInput

Transmits messages you need to process to the components that follow in the Job you are designing.

tKafkaInput is a generic message broker that transmits messages to the Job that runs transformations over these messages.

This component is not shipped with your Talend Studio by default. You need to install it using the Feature Manager. For more information, see [Installing features using the Feature Manager](https://help.qlik.com/talend/r/en-US/8.0/studio-user-guide/install-features-to-talend-studio).

### In this section

* [tKafkaInput Standard properties](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/kafka/tkafkainput-standard-properties)
* [tKafkaInput properties for Apache Spark Streaming (deprecated)](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/kafka/tkafkainput-properties-for-apache-spark-streaming)
* [tKafkaInput properties for Apache Spark Structured Streaming](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/kafka/tkafkainput-properties-for-apache-spark-structured-streaming)

**Related concepts**

* [Analyzing a Twitter flow in near real-time (deprecated)](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/kafka/tkafkainput-tkafkacreatetopic-thdfsconfiguration-ts3configuration-analyzing-twitter-flow-in-near-real-time-spark-stream-component-in-this)
* [Reading and writing Avro data from Kafka using Standard Jobs](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/kafka/writing-and-reading-avro-data-from-kafka-using-a-standard-job)