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Amazon API Gateway vs Amazon SNS

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

What is Amazon API Gateway?

Amazon API Gateway is a pay-as-you-go service for building, deploying, and managing RESTful APIs and WebSocket APIs. It handles traffic management, CORS support, access and authentication, version management, and more.

Suitable for:

  • Realtime chat applications
  • Online collaborative apps
  • Multiplayer gaming
  • Realtime analytics
  • Monitoring services

Not suitable for:

  • Heavy data transfers

Pros:

  • Pre-built adapters
  • Fine-grained security features
  • Scalable
  • Multiple SDKs

Cons:

  • Complex setup
  • Learning curve
  • Enterprise-focused

What is Amazon SNS?

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

Suitable for:

  • Push notifications
  • Apps with high message throughput
  • Event-heavy apps

Not suitable for:

  • Timed message delivery
  • Ordered messages
  • Precise retry control

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Instant message delivery
  • Multi-protocol support
  • Message filtering

Cons:

  • No message persistence
  • Limited scalling options

Compare Amazon API Gateway and Amazon SNS

Let’s compare Amazon API Gateway and Amazon SNS, 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 API Gateway and Amazon SNS. The content was last updated on 17 Jul 2024 for Amazon API Gateway and on 23 Jul 2024 for Amazon SNS. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.

Core features
Pub/Sub messaging

Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.

Amazon API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS supports Pub/Sub messaging through topics and subscriptions.

Read more
Chat capabilities

Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

API Gateway does not natively support chat capabilities. However, this can be achieved using different AWS services like Lambda and DynamoDB.

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.

Collaboration capabilities

Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Amazon SNS

No

State sync capabilities

Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

API Gateway does not natively support state synchronization, but it can be achieved through integration with services like Amazon DynamoDB, AWS AppSync, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3.

Amazon SNS

Partial

AWS SNS notifies on changes, but does not manage state synchronization directly.

Presence

Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.

Amazon API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

No

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 API Gateway

Partial

API Gateway does not have built-in support for occupancy tracking. Occupancy tracking functionality requires integration with AWS Lambda, DynamoDB, or ElastiCache.

Amazon SNS

No

Message interactions

Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

Message interactions are not natively supported in API Gateway. However, you can programmatically build interactions on the application layer with AWS Lambda.

Amazon SNS

No

Message history

Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

You can custom build message history functionality on Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon S3, but it's not supported natively in API Gateway.

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
Push notifications

Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

API Gateway doesn't natively support push notifications, but you can build them be integrating with Amazon SNS or AWS Amplify.

Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS specializes in delivering push notifications to mobile devices and other endpoints.

Message delta compression

Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.

Amazon API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

No

Programmatic management

Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Fully supported through AWS SDKs, the CLI, and CloudFormation.

Amazon SNS

Yes

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 API Gateway

Yes

The Amazon API Gateway free tier includes one million API calls received for REST APIs, one million API calls received for HTTP APIs, and one million messages and 750,000 connection minutes for WebSocket APIs per month for up to 12 months.

Read more
Amazon SNS

No

The Spark plan (free plan) realtime database is limited to 100 simultaneous connections and 1 GB of storage.

Read more
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 API Gateway

API Gateway has a free plan and a pay-as-you-go plan:

  • Free plan: Up to one million API calls received for REST APIs, one million API calls received for HTTP APIs, and one million messages and 750,000 connection minutes for WebSocket APIs per month for up to 12 months.
  • PAYG plan: The first 1 billion requests per month cost $1.00 per million requests.
Amazon SNS

AWS SNS has a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on usage (number of requests and messages published).

Read more
Integrations & interoperability
SDKs

Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.

Amazon API Gateway
  • Node.js
  • Javascript
  • React Native
  • Go
  • C++
  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • .NET
  • PHP
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • Swift
Amazon SNS
  • Go
  • PHP
  • Java
  • Javascript
  • .NET
  • Kotlin
  • Python
  • C++
  • Ruby
Supported realtime protocols

Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.

Amazon API Gateway
  • WebSockets
Amazon SNS
  • HTTP/HTTPS
  • Email (SMTP)
  • SMS (TCP)
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 API Gateway
  • AWS Lambda
Amazon SNS

None natively; serverless functions are available through integration with AWS Lambda.

Streaming & queueing

Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.

Amazon API Gateway

No

API Gateway does not support message queueing, but Amazon SQS can.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Partial

Available through Amazon SQS.

Observability services

Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Amazon API Gateway logs API calls, latency, and error rates to Amazon CloudWatch in your AWS account.

Amazon SNS

Partial

AWS SNS provides an integration with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring usage and metrics.

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 API Gateway

Yes

Supports:

  • AWS CodePipeline
Amazon SNS

Yes

Supports:

  • AWS CodePipeline
Quality of Service
Scalability

Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.

Amazon API Gateway

AWS API Gateway is scalable, supporting high connection rates, numerous routes and integrations, and long-lived connections without explicit concurrent connection limits. You can find more info on limits here.

Amazon SNS

No published metrics are available.

Guaranteed message delivery

Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.

Amazon API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

No

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 API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

No

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 API Gateway

No

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.

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 API Gateway

99.95%.

Read more
Amazon SNS

99.9%.

Read more
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 API Gateway

Yes

API Gateway API endpoints can be configured to be closer to where the majority of your traffic is originating from.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Yes

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 API Gateway

Partial

API Gateway supports multi-region data replication only when integrated with Amazon CloudFront.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Partial

AWS SNS supports message durability through integration with other AWS services for multi-region replication.

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 API Gateway

No

Amazon SNS

Yes

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 API Gateway

Unknown.

Amazon SNS

Unknown.

Security & compliance
API key authentication

Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS uses AWS IAM for managing API key authentication.

Token-based authentication

Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS uses the AWS STS (Security Token Service) for token-based authentication.

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 API Gateway

Yes

AWS API Gateway supports SSO by integrating with identity providers such as OpenID Connect (OIDC) and SAML.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS supports Single Sign-On (SSO) through AWS IAM and AWS SSO.

Rules for permissions and operations

Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Rules for permissions and operations can be configured using AWS Identity and Access Management.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS permissions and operations can be managed through AWS IAM policies.

End-to-end encryption

Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.

Amazon API Gateway

Yes

Data in transit is encrypted using HTTPS in Amazon API Gateway.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Yes

Encryption at rest

Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.

Amazon API Gateway

Partial

It is possible to encrypt data at rest using AWS SDKs or AWS CLI when creating a file system. This is not done automatically.

Read more
Amazon SNS

Yes

AWS SNS supports encryption at rest using AWS KMS (Key Management Service).

Compliance

Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.

Amazon API Gateway
  • SOC1
  • SOC2
  • SOC3
  • PCI DSS Level 1
  • ISO 20000
  • ISO 22301
  • ISO 27001
  • ISO 27017
  • ISO 27701
Read more
Amazon SNS
  • SOC
  • GDPR
  • ISO 27001

Alternatives to Amazon API Gateway and Amazon SNS

Whilst both Amazon API Gateway and Amazon SNS 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 API Gateway

AWS AppSync enables developers to seamlessly handle and synchronize mobile app data in real-time across multiple devices and users.

PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.

Microsoft Azure Web PubSub is a fully managed PubSub offering. It is available as part of Microsoft's Azure Cloud Computing platform.

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.

OneSignal is a push notification delivery platform.

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. Serving more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform on earth. Businesses trust us to power their critical applications - reliably, securely and at serious scale.

Discover how Amazon API Gateway and Amazon SNS stack up against Ably

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

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