# Consumer groups

This page just details out the possible scenarios where the number of partitions and consumers in a consumer group may differ.

- If the number of consumers is less than the number of topic partitions, then multiple partitions can be assigned to one of the consumers in the group

[![image.png](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/scaled-1680-/qLIimage.png)](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/qLIimage.png)

- If the number of consumers is the same as the number of topic partitions, then partition and consumer will be mapped one to one, one possible mapping can be

[![image.png](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/scaled-1680-/haGimage.png)](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/haGimage.png)

- If the number of consumers is higher than the number of topic partitions, then partition and consumer will be mapped one to one as well, except those consumers without a partition will just be idling without a partition to consume from.

[![image.png](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/scaled-1680-/qGwimage.png)](https://wiki.tamarinne.me/uploads/images/gallery/2023-08/qGwimage.png)