When working with distributed systems and real-time data streams, visibility into the message flow is crucial. Apache Pulsar is a powerful messaging platform, but even the best systems need a user-friendly way to peek inside and understand what’s happening under the hood.
In this guide, we'll show you how to browse messages within Apache Pulsar using our intuitive web interface. Whether you're debugging a tricky issue, inspecting payloads, or just exploring a new topic, the message browser makes it simple.
To get started, open the Explorer page. This is your main starting point for interacting with your Pulsar environment.
Once you are on the Explorer page, you'll see a list of tenants, the logical groups that help organize your messaging infrastructure. Each tenant contains one or more namespaces, which in turn contain the actual topics where your messages live.
Here’s a quick path through the structure:
This clear hierarchy ensures you always know exactly where you are in the system.
Once you’ve selected a topic, you’ll land on its overview page. This page gives you general information about the topic, such as its configuration and metrics.
But for now, let’s focus on what we came here for, browsing messages.
Head over to the Browse tab. This is where the magic happens.
By default, you’ll enter livestream mode, which continuously streams messages as they arrive. This is perfect for watching data flow in real time. You can observe everything from payloads and timestamps to headers and metadata.
Need to troubleshoot? Want to verify message formatting? Curious about metadata?
Browsing lets you do it all without writing a single line of code.
While live browsing is great, sometimes you’ll want to inspect historical messages or search for something specific. Thanks to Streamvisor, you also have access to more advanced filtering and browsing options, such as:
These tools let you zero in on the data that matters most.
Being able to visually browse messages is a feature that makes a big difference. It turns a black-box stream into a transparent flow of information. Accessible, inspectable, and understandable.
With our UI, you’re never more than a few clicks away from your data. Try it out next time you need to debug, demo, or just satisfy your curiosity!
