@bigdata.neophyte Here are a few answers for you: NiFi can be interacted with via the UI as well as its REST API. The API is documented at https://nifi.apache.org/docs/nifi-docs/rest-api/index.html. NiFi is primarily a data flow tool whereas Kafka is a broker for a pub/sub type of use pattern. Kafka is frequently used as the backing mechanism for NiFi flows in a pub/sub architecture, so while they work well together they provide two different functions in a given solution. NiFi does have a visual command and control mechanism, while Kafka does not have a native command and control GUI Apache Atlas, Kafka, and NiFi all can work together to provide a comprehensive lineage / governance solution. There is a high level architecture slide at https://hortonworks.com/apache/atlas/#section_2 as well as a tutorial that might help this make more sense at https://hortonworks.com/hadoop-tutorial/cross-component-lineage-apache-atlas/. Data prioritization, back pressure, and balancing latency and throughput are all within NiFi's many strong points and these can be leveraged easily. Kafka does really not provide data prioritization. Security aspects of both Kafka and NiFi are tightly integrated with Apache Ranger, take a look at https://hortonworks.com/apache/ranger/ for additional details. Hope this helps, and please accept the answer if this was helpful.
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