> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://upstash-vector.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

Schema Registry serves as a central hub to handle and validate schemas for message data related to Kafka topics.
It also manages serialization and deserialization of data over the network.
This aids producers and consumers in maintaining data consistency and compatibility as schemas change.

Schema Registry by Upstash is API compatible with the Confluent Schema Registry. That means you can use
it with:

* io.confluent.kafka.serializers.KafkaAvroSerializer/Deserializer
* io.confluent.connect.avro.AvroConverter
* Any UI tool that supports Confluent Schema Registry.

See [How to](./schemahowto) to learn how to configure the schema registry to use in various scenarios.

See [Compatibility](./schemacompatibility) page for details of compatibility settings.

See [Rest API](./schemarest) in case you want to directly access the schema registry.