Kafka was started at linkedin, however several of the people who started it have started a new company Confluent around it. Confluent Github is the currently the best plcae for kafka tools / libraries.
It is tricky to get kafka and zookeeper working locally. Lots of the examples on the web only work on linux or have issues. This docker-compose appears to be the best/simplest one available.
kafka tool is a great way to explore kafka. Get version 2 Kafka Tool
The confluent C# library is on github. It was recently overhauled so lots (most) of the examples of how to use it on the web are wrong. The examples in the repo are the best starting point.