# How to Create Kafka Topics

Kafka is an open-source distributed event and stream-processing platform built to process demanding real-time data feeds. It is inherently scalable, with high throughput and availability.

You can [create](#create), [edit](#edit), and [delete](#delete) Topics for your Kafka cluster in the [control panel](https://cloud.digitalocean.com/databases). Click your Kafka cluster, then click the **Topics & Users** tab.

## Create Topic

To create a new Topic, click the **Create Topic** button.

![The Create menu](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/databases/kafka-create-topic.a9b73090bc9133ce465434126593e35bfe019bd5254d32ba5fcd9ac2abba27ab.png)

This opens the Topic configuration pop-up window. Fill out the following fields with your information:

- Topic Name: Sets the name of this topic.
- Partition Count: Splits topics into this many logs, which allows up to the same number of consumers to read each topic simultaneously. Using excessive partitions can make your Kafka cluster inefficient.
- Replication Factor: Copies all data this many times across your cluster. This value cannot exceed the number of nodes in your cluster.
- Retention (hours): Maximum time, in hours, before this topic is deleted. If retention in bytes is also set, then the topic is deleted when both conditions apply.
- Retention (bytes): Maximum data, in bytes, before this topic is deleted. If retention in hours is also set, then the topic is deleted when both conditions apply.

![The Create menu](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/databases/kafka-topic-config.5d2c8e9a3df0f6d7e2db82d7baa203f4df46b0b554ef4e87ccc2d71062bc5cff.png)

Click **Create Topic** to confirm your configuration. After a few seconds, your **Topics & Users** tab updates to display a list of your cluster’s Topics.

## Edit Topic

To edit an existing Topic, click the **…** icon to the right of a Topic, and click **Edit Topic**. This returns you to the configuration pop-up window, where you can change the Topic’s settings and apply them by clicking **Save**.

![](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/databases/kafka-edit-topic.dbe3fba9b27820e96227fac4f3ea28f48f9c177b1c8a18c1b8ea2e1797498c40.png)

## Delete Topic

To delete a Topic, click the **…** icon to the right of a Topic, and click **Delete Topic**. This permanently destroys the Topic and all data on it.

![](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/databases/kafka-delete-topic.6cfadea53f85737cffe212393d7f753a39662436b96a563cbe946f9759af80b3.png)