Apache Kafka is a distributed streaming platform used for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications. It is designed to handle high throughput and low latency, making it ideal for processing large streams of data in real-time. Kafka works by storing streams of records in categories called topics, which can be produced by various sources and consumed by multiple consumers. This architecture ensures that Kafka can scale horizontally and handle the continuous flow of data efficiently. It is commonly used for log aggregation, event sourcing, and real-time analytics.