Apache Curator is a Java/JVM client library for Apache ZooKeeper, governed by the Apache Software Foundation, that provides a high-level API framework, fluent builders, and pre-built distributed coordination recipes including leader election, distributed locks, barriers, caches, counters, and service discovery. It significantly simplifies writing reliable distributed applications.
URL: Visit APIs.json URL
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- Apache, Distributed Coordination, Distributed Systems, Java, Maven, Open Source, Service Discovery, ZooKeeper
- Created: 2026-03-16
- Modified: 2026-04-19
Curator provides a high-level Java API with fluent builders for ZooKeeper operations, along with pre-built recipes for leader election, distributed locks (shared, reentrant, read-write, semaphore), barriers, caches (CuratorCache, PathCache, TreeCache), distributed counters, queues, group membership, and service discovery via curator-x-discovery.
Human URL: https://curator.apache.org/docs/about
- Barriers, Caches, Distributed Locks, Java, Leader Election, Maven, Queues, Service Discovery, ZooKeeper
- Documentation
- APIReference
- GettingStarted
- GitHubRepository
- curator-framework (Maven)
- curator-recipes (Maven)
- curator-x-discovery (Maven)
- curator-async (Maven)
- curator-test (Testing)
- Distributed Lock
- Leader Latch State
- Node Data
- Service Instance
- JSONStructure
- JSONStructure
- JSONStructure
- JSONStructure
- JSONLD
- Example
- Example
- Example
- Example
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| High-Level ZooKeeper Client | Wraps the raw ZooKeeper client with connection management, retry policies, and error handling for reliable distributed coordination. |
| Fluent Builder API | Provides a chainable, readable Java DSL for all ZooKeeper CRUD operations including watchers, transactions, and ACLs. |
| Distributed Coordination Recipes | Pre-built implementations of distributed patterns: leader election, locks, semaphores, barriers, counters, queues, and group membership. |
| Service Discovery | curator-x-discovery provides a ZooKeeper-based service registry and discovery mechanism with instance registration and lookup. |
| Asynchronous DSL | curator-async provides a CompletionStage-based async API with O/R modeling and schema migration for ZooKeeper data. |
| Node Caching | CuratorCache provides an efficient local replica of ZooKeeper subtrees with near-real-time change notifications. |
| Testing Support | curator-test includes TestingServer (embedded ZooKeeper) and TestingCluster for writing reliable unit and integration tests. |
| Retry Policies | Configurable retry policies (ExponentialBackoff, BoundedExponentialBackoff, RetryNTimes, etc.) for handling transient failures. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Distributed Leader Election | Elect a single leader across a cluster for coordinating distributed workloads, using LeaderLatch or LeaderSelector recipes. |
| Distributed Locking | Prevent concurrent access to shared resources across JVMs using InterProcessMutex and related lock recipes. |
| Service Registry and Discovery | Register microservices with ZooKeeper and discover them by type using curator-x-discovery. |
| Distributed Configuration | Store and watch shared configuration data across a cluster with automatic change notifications via NodeCache. |
| Cluster Membership Tracking | Track which nodes are alive in a distributed cluster using GroupMember and PersistentNode recipes. |
| Distributed Counters and IDs | Generate globally unique sequential IDs or maintain shared atomic counters across a cluster. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Apache ZooKeeper | Curator is built on top of ZooKeeper and requires a running ZooKeeper ensemble. |
| Apache Kafka | Earlier versions of Kafka used ZooKeeper (managed via Curator) for broker coordination and metadata. |
| Apache HBase | HBase uses ZooKeeper for master election and region server coordination, often managed via Curator. |
| Apache Storm | Storm uses Curator for its ZooKeeper-based cluster state management. |
| Spring Framework | Spring Cloud Zookeeper integrates with Apache Curator for service discovery and distributed configuration. |
| Maven Central | All Curator modules are published to Maven Central under org.apache.curator group ID. |
Machine-readable schemas for Apache Curator data models.
- Apache Curator Vocabulary — Taxonomy mapping 8 resources, 8 actions, and 3 personas across the Curator distributed coordination library
FN: Kin Lane
Email: info@apievangelist.com