Event-native data platform innovator Kurrent is releasing KurrentDB 26, adding native Kafka Source Connector, Relational Sink, and Custom Indices capabilities that reduce custom code requirements for event-driven architectures.
According to the company, the release enables operators to ingest events directly from Kafka, automatically synchronize read models in PostgreSQL and SQL Server, and reorganize events by custom properties without touching application code.
For enterprises building systems that require both audit trails and historical context for AI and analytics, KurrentDB 26 eliminates months of integration work by moving these capabilities from code libraries into configuration, the company said.
The new version also extends archiving support to Azure and the Google Cloud Platform, complementing existing AWS archiving capabilities and providing enterprises with flexibility in long-term storage provider selection.
KurrentDB’s event-native architecture stores immutable event logs while providing Kafka-compatible streaming. KurrentDB 26 extends this approach by natively integrating with Kafka for ingestion and relational databases for read model creation, eliminating the middleware layers that have become standard in contemporary data stacks.
This builds on KurrentDB’s Multi-Stream Append capability, which allows atomic writes across multiple streams to maintain data integrity and consistency without complex saga, process manager, or workflow patterns, the company said.
“The value of KurrentDB has always been time and flexibility—a data model capturing state and context, the power to shape data products instantly and the freedom to adapt without migrations. For agentic AI, these aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re requirements,” said Kirk Dunn, CEO of Kurrent. “Our new release extends these capabilities. The Kafka Source Connector ingests without custom code, Custom Indices reorganize without touching source events and the Relational Sink streams to Postgres and SQL Server in real-time. Whereas CRUD architectures are lossy, rigid and slow, KurrentDB keeps your source of truth complete, your architecture fluid and your data where you need it.”
Building event-driven systems typically requires substantial custom development. KurrentDB 26 addresses this operational burden through three integrated capabilities:
- The Kafka Source Connector makes it possible for KurrentDB to subscribe directly to Kafka topics as a standard consumer, automatically routing events into KurrentDB streams based on topic names, message keys, or header values.
- The Relational Sink automates the creation and maintenance of read models in PostgreSQL and SQL Server databases. Each event automatically triggers SQL statements that update the target database, eliminating the custom code required to maintain real-time materialized views.
- Custom Indices allow operators to create virtual views organized by any property without modifying the underlying event log. Multiple indices can operate on the same event stream simultaneously, creating different logical views of the same immutable data without duplication overhead.
KurrentDB 26 addresses this through non-disruptive integration with existing systems. Using change data capture capabilities, organizations can capture events from transaction logs and application databases without modifying application code. These captured events serve dual purposes: they form the audit trail for AI actions and provide the historical context AI systems require for decision-making. This allows enterprises to establish event-driven architectures gradually from existing monolithic systems, rather than requiring parallel rewrites, the company said.
“KurrentDB 26’s architectural flexibility extends beyond integration,” Dunn added. “It transforms one-way-door architectural decisions into two-way doors. Organizations can restructure their stream architecture, create new organizational views and evolve their systems without the massive refactoring traditional databases require.”
KurrentDB 26 is available immediately for deployment on-premises, on Kubernetes, and on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Organizations can deploy open source KurrentDB or upgrade existing KurrentDB instances.
For more information about this news, visit www.kurrent.io.