I've been looking into Apache Camel and Kafka over the past two days in hopes of learning about messaging frameworks/brokers. Is a possible use case of Camel/Kafka using Kafka as the message broker while implementing the producers and consumers with Camel? I saw a brief example of something similar, but can't seem to find it again. If not, what is the point of the Camel:Kafka component?
Yes Apache Camel makes using Kafka easier as it hides a bunch of the complexities, which is the main point about Camel components. However if you need to do something really advanced or be in control yourself then sometimes a Camel component may lack a functionality for that, or some hooks/apis you need, and if so people ask for that and we improve these components over time, to the communities requirements. And if you cannot wait/do that, then you do NOT have to use a Camel component and can use the Kafka API yourself directly - after all its all just Java.
There is also an Camel example here: https://github.com/apache/camel/tree/master/examples/camel-example-kafka.
And the Camel in Action 2nd edition book covers Camel with Kafka in its cluster chapter.