Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 1, 2026. This policy covers the KafDesk app for macOS, Windows and Linux, its MCP server and kafdesk.com, run by Aleksandr Kozlov, trading as KafDesk, Yerevan, Armenia ("we"), which is responsible for the data described here.

The short version

• KafDesk talks to your Kafka clusters, Schema Registry and Kafka Connect directly from your computer, with your own credentials. Nothing about your clusters — names, topics, messages, schemas, configurations, credentials — is sent to us.
• We have no servers for the app and no user accounts. Licence keys are checked with Polar, which sells KafDesk.
• We do not sell data, show tracking ads or use analytics, telemetry or crash reporting in the app or on this website.

What the app connects to

• Your clusters and the Schema Registry and Kafka Connect addresses you add, only to do what you ask.
• Polar's licence API (api.polar.sh), when you activate or deactivate a licence key and about once a day to check it. It sends the key, an activation identifier and your computer's name (for example "MacBook-Pro"), so you can tell your devices apart in the Polar customer portal.
• Update checks, only if you allow them (then once a day) or check by hand: on macOS the app reads kafdesk.com/appcast.xml, on Windows and Linux kafdesk.com/release.txt. The files themselves are served from GitHub. When you click Install update on Windows or Linux, the app downloads the new installer or package and the release's SHA256SUMS from kafdesk.com/dl (also served from GitHub). A check or download sends nothing about you or your clusters beyond what any web request carries, such as your IP address.
• Your team connections file, only if you set an https address for it in Settings → Team connections: the app downloads it when you save or reload it and every 15 minutes while it runs, without credentials. A file path is read from your disk or shared drive instead.

Nothing else is contacted.

AI agents

When you connect an AI agent such as Claude Code or Cursor, it starts KafDesk's MCP server on your computer, which gives it access only to the connection profiles you share; changes need your permission. What the agent then sends to its own AI provider is governed by that tool and that provider, not by us.

What stays on your computer

Connection profiles, settings, saved filters and the app's log file are stored locally. Passwords, keys and tokens are kept in your system's credential store (the Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, the Secret Service on Linux). The trial start date and the licence state are stored locally too. None of it is sent to us.

Payments

Polar (Polar Software, Inc.) sells KafDesk as merchant of record. Polar collects and processes your payment and billing details under its own privacy policy; we receive your name, email address, country, what you bought and the state of your licence keys. We never see your card details. We use this to provide your licence and support, and to meet legal and accounting obligations.

Early-access list

If you join the list on kafdesk.com, we store your email address, the answer you choose about where your Kafka runs, your browser's user-agent string and your country as Cloudflare reports it, with the date. We use it only to email you about KafDesk releases. Ask us and we remove it.

Service providers

• Cloudflare — hosting of this website and the early-access list.
• GitHub — hosting of the app's downloads and update files.
• Polar — payments and licence keys, as described above.

Some of them are outside your country, including in the United States; where the law requires it, transfers rely on the providers' standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.

How long we keep data

Purchase records are kept as long as accounting law requires. Early-access entries are kept until the list is no longer used or you ask us to remove yours.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of your data, its correction or its deletion at [email protected]. Depending on where you live — for example under the GDPR in the EU and the UK — you can also object to the processing, ask for it to be restricted, and complain to your data protection authority.

This website

kafdesk.com sets no cookies and uses no analytics or third-party scripts. The checkout sends you to Polar, which takes payment under its own privacy policy.

Children

KafDesk is a tool for professionals and is not directed at children under 16.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too.

Contact

Aleksandr Kozlov, trading as KafDesk, Yerevan, Armenia · [email protected]