We find that a simple in-memory synchronous message bus + event logging to files goes a long way. See e.g. https://github.com/robertreppel/hist for an in-memory bus + file system (and DynamoDB ...) helloworld which isn't .net.

Scaling that up by adding asynchronicity and more ambitious plumbing when needed seems reasonably straightforward. For something more out-of-the-box, see https://geteventstore.com/ . It has clients in a variety of languages. Comes with a nice HTTP API too.

I wouldn't normally read the entire event stream; usually, only the state of a particular object (aggregate, in Domain Driven Design speak) is of interest, E.g. the customer with id 12345. Events contain the aggregate ID, so the query to whatever event store you use would be "give me all events with aggregate ID 12345".