Amazon SNS vs Amazon SQS

Discover how Amazon SNS compares to Amazon SQS, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.

What is Amazon SNS?

AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a fully managed notification service that uses the Pub/Sub model to provide message delivery from publishers to subscribers.

When to use Amazon SNS

Pros and cons of Amazon SNS

What is Amazon SQS?

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a fully managed messaging queuing service which enables decoupling and scaling of distributed systems. It is secure, reliable, and suitable for handling asynchronous communication between software components, which ensures that messages are not lost and are processed efficiently.

When to use Amazon SQS

Pros and cons of Amazon SQS

Compare Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS

Let’s compare Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS, looking at key dimensions such as their core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Disclaimer:This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS. The content was last updated on 14 Feb 2025 for Amazon SNS and on 16 Aug 2024 for Amazon SQS. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.

In this table

Core features
Pricing
Integrations & interoperability
Quality of Service
Performance & availability
Security & compliance

Alternatives to Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS

While both Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS are worth considering as options for realtime experiences, they aren’t without their limitations. We suggest evaluating them against the following alternatives to make sure you find the right solution for your needs.

Alternatives to Amazon SNS

Google Cloud Pub/Sub is a scalable messaging service that can be used to send and receive messages from applications or services.

Azure Service Bus is a fully managed message service with message queues and Pub/Sub topics.

OneSignal is a customer engagement platform that offers push notifications, messages, and email sends for businesses to manage communication with their users.

See more alternatives to Amazon SNS

Alternatives to Amazon SQS

RabbitMQ is the open-source message broker supporting multiple messaging protocols.

ActiveMQ is an open-source message broker with support for multiple protocols, offering high availability and scalability for enterprise messaging.

Apache Kafka is an open-source realtime data streaming platform.

See more alternatives to Amazon SQS

Discover how Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Ably vs Amazon SNS Ably vs Amazon SQS

Try Ably for free to discover the benefits for yourself

Ably has built reliable realtime infrastructure so you don’t have to. On our free plan you benefit from:

6M monthly messages
200 concurrent channels
200 concurrent connections

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	Amazon SNS	Amazon SQS	Why this is important
Core features
Pub/Sub messaging	Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS supports Pub/Sub messaging through topics and subscriptions. Read more	Amazon SQS No AWS SQS is a queueing system and not a pub/sub messaging system.	Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.
Chat capabilities	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.	Amazon SNS Partial AWS SNS does not have in-built chat capabilities. It's primarily used for message delivery across HTTP/S, email, SMS, and Amazon SQS. You can use AWS Chatbot to enable chat in conjunction with SNS.	Amazon SQS No	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.
Collaboration capabilities	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS No	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.
State sync capabilities	Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.	Amazon SNS Partial AWS SNS notifies on changes, but does not manage state synchronization directly.	Amazon SQS Partial AWS SQS can be implemented with AWS AppSync which supports real-time data synchronization using GraphQL subscriptions. This allows UI updates to reflect changes in the underlying data store (like DynamoDB or other databases) without the need for polling.	Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.
Presence	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS Partial Partially supported, requiring integration with other AWS services.	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.
Occupancy	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS No	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.
Message interactions	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS No	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.
Message history	Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS allows topic subscribers to retrieve (or replay) the archived messages back to a subscribed endpoint. This can be done by with the AWS API, SDK, AWS CloudFormation, and AWS Management Console. This functionality is only available for application-to-application (A2A) FIFO topics. Read more	Amazon SQS Partial Amazon S3 can be used to archive past messages, while AWS AppSync can facilitate retrieving messages and syncing them with UI updates. However, managing message history may require additional custom development or integration.	Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.
Push notifications	Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS specializes in delivering push notifications to mobile devices and other endpoints.	Amazon SQS Partial Amazon SQS can be integrated with AWS SNS to deliver push notifications based on events.	Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.
Message delta compression	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS No	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.
Programmatic management	Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.	Amazon SNS Yes	Amazon SQS Yes AWS provides comprehensive APIs and SDKs for programmatic management of its services.	Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.
Pricing
Free plan	With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.	Amazon SNS No AWS SNS does not offer a free tier, but has a pay-as-you-go pricing model.	Amazon SQS Yes The Amazon SQS Free Tier offers up to 1 million requests per month at no cost for all customers for both standard and FIFO Queues.	With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.
Pricing model	The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient.	Amazon SNS AWS SNS has a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on usage (number of requests and messages published). Read more	Amazon SQS AWS SQS has a free tier and pay-as-you-go pricing model based on usage (number of queue requests and data transfer). Read more	The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient.
Integrations & interoperability
SDKs	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	Amazon SNS Go PHP Java Javascript .NET Kotlin Python C++ Ruby	Amazon SQS C++ Go Java JavaScript Kotlin .NET PHP Python Ruby Rust Swift	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	Amazon SNS HTTP/HTTPS Email (SMTP) SMS (TCP)	Amazon SQS HTTP/HTTPS Amazon SQS Long Polling	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.
Serverless functions	Enables integration with third-party cloud providers by facilitating the execution of custom code against messages to perform business logic like on-the-fly translation.	Amazon SNS None natively; serverless functions are available through integration with AWS Lambda.	Amazon SQS None natively; serverless functions are available through integration with AWS Lambda.	Enables integration with third-party cloud providers by facilitating the execution of custom code against messages to perform business logic like on-the-fly translation.
Streaming & queueing	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.	Amazon SNS Partial Available through Amazon SQS.	Amazon SQS Yes	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.
Observability services	Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.	Amazon SNS Partial AWS SNS provides an integration with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring usage and metrics.	Amazon SQS Partial AWS SQS provides an integration with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring usage and metrics.	Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.
CI/CD tools	Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.	Amazon SNS Yes Supports: AWS CodePipeline	Amazon SQS Yes Supports: AWS CodeCommit AWS CodeBuild AWS CodePipeline AWS CodeDeploy	Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.
Quality of Service
Scalability	Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.	Amazon SNS No published metrics are available.	Amazon SQS No published metrics are available.	Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.
Guaranteed message delivery	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS Yes AWS SQS provides robust support for guaranteed message delivery, ensuring that each message is reliably delivered to its intended recipient.	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.
Guaranteed message ordering	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.	Amazon SNS No	Amazon SQS Yes For AWS SQS FIFO Queues, messages are delivered in the exact order they are sent, following a strict First-In-First-Out (FIFO) sequence.	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.
Exactly-once message delivery	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.	Amazon SNS No AWS SNS not support exactly-once delivery semantics out of the box. It ensures at least-once delivery, but does not guarantee exactly-once delivery.	Amazon SQS Yes When using AWS SQS FIFO Queues, messages are delivered exactly once with no duplication.	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
Performance & availability
Uptime Guarantee	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.	Amazon SNS 99.9%. Read more	Amazon SQS 99.9%. Read more	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.
Global edge network	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.	Amazon SNS Yes	Amazon SQS Yes	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.
Multi-region data replication (message durability)	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.	Amazon SNS Partial AWS SNS supports message durability through integration with other AWS services for multi-region replication.	Amazon SQS Partial AWS SQS provides high message durability within a single AWS region by replicating messages across multiple Availability Zones. But it does not natively support cross-region replication. For multi-region data replication, you can use additional strategies, such as using AWS services like AWS Lambda or AWS Data Pipeline to replicate messages from SQS queues in one region to SQS queues in another region.	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.
No single point of failure or congestion	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.	Amazon SNS Yes	Amazon SQS Yes Messages in AWS SQS are distributed across various availability zones in a region, ensuring high availability and scalability.	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.
Latency	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.	Amazon SNS Unknown.	Amazon SQS Latencies for SendMessage, ReceiveMessage, and DeleteMessage API requests range from tens to low hundreds of milliseconds.	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Security & compliance
API key authentication	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS uses AWS IAM for managing API key authentication.	Amazon SQS Yes	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.
Token-based authentication	Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS uses the AWS STS (Security Token Service) for token-based authentication.	Amazon SQS No AWS SQS does not directly support token-based authentication. Instead, AWS SQS relies on AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for authentication and authorization.	Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication	SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS supports Single Sign-On (SSO) through AWS IAM and AWS SSO.	Amazon SQS Yes	SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.
Rules for permissions and operations	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS permissions and operations can be managed through AWS IAM policies.	Amazon SQS Yes	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.
End-to-end encryption	Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.	Amazon SNS Yes	Amazon SQS Yes	Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.
Encryption at rest	Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.	Amazon SNS Yes AWS SNS supports encryption at rest using AWS KMS (Key Management Service).	Amazon SQS Yes AWS SQS supports encryption at rest using AWS KMS (Key Management Service).	Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.
Compliance	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.	Amazon SNS SOC GDPR ISO 27001	Amazon SQS PCI DSS Level 1 certified HIPAA-eligible	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.