# Under the hood: Redpanda Cloud Topics architecture

DevFeed: [Under the hood: Redpanda Cloud Topics architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/under-the-hood-redpanda-cloud-topics-architecture-12685.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.redpanda.com/blog/cloud-topics-architecture>)

Author: Tyler Rockwood

Published: 2026-03-30T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Redpanda](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/redpanda.md>)

Topics: [Streaming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/streaming.md>), [Replication](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/replication.md>), [Amazon S3](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/amazon-s3.md>), [Raft](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/raft.md>), [Kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kafka.md>)

Tags: [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kafka.md>), [object-storage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/object-storage.md>), [raft](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/raft.md>), [replication](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/replication.md>), [streaming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/streaming.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains Redpanda Cloud Topics, which store record payloads in object storage while retaining partition metadata in Raft logs. It describes batching writes for object storage, preserving transaction and idempotency logic through Raft metadata, and the feature's general availability in Redpanda Streaming 26.1.

## Source excerpt

Cloud Topics represents a new replication mechanism in our Redpanda streaming engine that cuts costs by using object storage. Here's how it actually works.