Amazon SNS vs Amazon SQS
Amazon SNS
aws.amazon.com
Amazon SQS
aws.amazon.comSide by side
| Figure | Amazon SNS | Amazon SQS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.06/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 5 |
| Spec score · Message Broker Software | 8.5 (#7) | 8.7 (#5) |
| Compliance | Amazon SNS is listed as in scope for AWS SOC 1, 2, and 3 reports; AWS says customers remain responsible for their applicable compliance obligations. | AWS says its compliance program supports 143 security standards and certifications, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, FedRAMP, GDPR, FIPS 140-3 and NIST 800-171. |
| Encryption | Encrypted topics use server-side 256-bit AES-GCM encryption with a key issued by AWS Key Management Service. | Server-side encryption uses AWS Key Management Service keys to encrypt message bodies at rest and decrypt them for authorized consumers. |
| Integrations | SNS has native integrations with AWS event sources and destinations, and supports endpoints including Amazon SQS, Amazon Data Firehose, AWS Lambda, and HTTPS. | AWS lists integrations with Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS, EC2, ECS, Lambda, and S3, and describes fanout with SNS. |
| Purpose | Amazon SNS is a fully managed Pub/Sub service for application-to-application and application-to-person messaging. | Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queuing service for microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. |
Plans
Amazon SNS
- Free TierFree
- API requests$0.50 a month
- HTTP deliveries$0.06 a month
- Email deliveries$2 a month
- Pay-as-you-goPrice not published
Amazon SQS
- Free TierFree
- Standard queuesPriced on request
- FIFO queuesPriced on request
- Amazon SQS Free TierFree
- Pay-as-you-goPrice not published
In their own words
Amazon SNS
Amazon SNS is a managed publish/subscribe service for sending messages between applications and reaching people. It can deliver notifications to application endpoints and send SMS, mobile push, and email. Standard topics support nearly unlimited messages per second with best-effort ordering and deduplication; FIFO topics preserve order and prevent duplicate delivery within five minutes, with limits of 3,000 messages per second or 10 MB per second per topic. Publishers can batch 1 to 10 messages per request, while subscribers can filter notifications. Integrations include AWS event sources and destinations such as SQS, Data Firehose, Lambda, and HTTPS. Each message can contain up to 256 KB; the Extended Client Library can store payloads up to 2 GB in S3 and publish an object reference. SNS retries delivery and supports dead-letter queues. The free tier includes 1 million requests, 100,000 HTTP notifications, and 1,000 email notifications each month. Listed paid rates include $0.50 per month for API requests, $0.06 for HTTP deliveries, and $2.00 for email deliveries; charges depend on usage.
Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS is a cloud message queuing service for microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. It lets separate software components send, store, and receive messages, supporting decoupled and event-driven designs. Standard queues provide at-least-once delivery with best-effort ordering, while FIFO queues preserve order without introducing duplicates. Standard queues support nearly unlimited transactions per second for each API action; FIFO high-throughput mode supports up to 70,000 messages per second without batching. Messages can contain up to 256 KB, or larger payloads can use the Java Extended Client Library with Amazon S3. SQS accepts batches of up to 10 messages and retains messages for up to 14 days. Dead Letter Queues handle messages exceeding a configured receive count and must match the source queue type. Integrations include Redshift, DynamoDB, RDS, EC2, ECS, Lambda, S3, and SNS fanout. Server-side encryption uses AWS KMS keys. The Free Tier is free for 1 million requests; separate S3, KMS, and data-transfer charges may apply.