What’s New

This topic includes new content added in version 25.1. For a complete list of all product updates, see the Redpanda release notes. See also:

Iceberg improvements

Iceberg-enabled topics now support custom partitioning for improved query performance, snapshot expiry, and a dead-letter queue for invalid records. Schema evolution is also supported with schema mutations implemented according to the Iceberg specification.

Protobuf normalization in Schema Registry

Redpanda now supports normalization of Protobuf schemas in the Schema Registry. You can normalize Avro, JSON, and Protobuf schemas both during registration and lookup. For more information, see the Schema Registry overview, and the Schema Registry API reference.

SASL/PLAIN authentication

You now can configure Kafka clients to authenticate using SASL/PLAIN with a single account using the same username and password. Unlike SASL/SCRAM, which uses a challenge response with hashed credentials, SASL/PLAIN transmits plaintext passwords. You enable SASL/PLAIN by appending PLAIN to the list of SASL mechanisms.

New cluster properties

The following cluster properties are new in this version:

  • iceberg_invalid_record_action