Amazon SNS vs Azure Web PubSub
This Amazon SNS vs Azure Web PubSub comparison was created based on reviews from developers and our best attempts to perform analysis by looking at documentation and other publicly available resources.
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Take our APIs for a spinAmazon SNS | Azure Web PubSub | |
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Getting started and developer experience | ||
Time to "hello world" Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Ratings were given based on the average amount of time it takes to sign up to a new account and publish the first message. | 4 / 5 5 = <30 min | 3 / 5 5 = <30 min |
Demos / Tutorials A selection of online demos and tutorials so you can test and see the code in action. Explore Ably's tutorials for our pub/sub messaging platform | ||
Documentation Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's documentation for our pub/sub messaging platform | 4 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 "The Amazon documentation is comprehensive and, unlike many other products, clearly states what you can use Amazon SNS for. Several pages are dedicated to explaining in detail how FIFO topics (which provide superior quality of service) work. Overall, the developer guide might not deserve its name since it’s mostly a product guide. Its primary focus is on explaining things conceptually and performing operations in the AWS console. There’s a limited number of code snippets embedded in the dev guide, and only in a couple of languages. Fortunately, the API documentation is very detailed, although it’s inconsistently presented across languages, and you won’t always find code snippets in your language of choice. The official tutorials are poor, only cover some basics, and focus almost entirely on the AWS console." | 3.50 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 “Good quick starts and how-to guides, but the information architecture could be better - sometimes you have to do a bit of digging to find what you need (e.g. how to do pub/sub messaging). The API reference is clear, and the readability and docs design are decent. The quality of sample code provided is not great, and you often have to search for external examples. More tutorials would have been good, and more diverse (most of the existing ones focus on chat).” |
Dashboard or dev console Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Sign up for free and explore Ably's pub/sub messaging platform | 4 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 "Getting started with the SNS console as a new user can be a confusing and slightly painful experience (unless you look at the documentation in parallel). That’s because the website itself is clunky and not very easy to navigate. On the other hand, the console allows you to configure your pipeline down to the smallest details, so it’s hard to wrap up all the existing features in an easy to use package. The reporting available is good, but there’s always room for improvement. Analytics on message origin would be beneficial." | 4 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 “Azure Portal allows you to configure and manage your Web PubSub deployment, e.g. creating a service instance, setting up endpoints and connections to the service, scaling connections, etc. All is pretty well explained, with plenty of tooltips and instructions in the UI. You can also monitor various stats such as the number of concurrent connections and how it evolves over time. There’s a live trace tool that makes it easy to capture and troubleshoot issues in realtime.” |
SDKs Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account. Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform | 9 SDKs Including:
| 4 server SDKs Including:
You can build/use standard WebSocket clients in different programming languages and connect them to Azure Web PubSub.
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API structure Reviewed by 3+ independent developers | 3.75 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 "The API has a good naming convention, which makes it intuitive. Syntactically, the API structure is mostly uniform across different programming languages. The extensive API reference is an invaluable resource for getting started with Amazon SNS. It’s not the most straightforward service to use - for example, the opt-in process for e-mail and SMS notifications is cumbersome, and there aren’t enough debugging options." | 3.75 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 “The API seems to be consistent across all the server SDKs, with few differences between languages. Parameters, methods, etc are pretty intuitively named. It’s not necessarily the most straightforward API to use, as it has many interfaces; plus, you will often find you need to do some data massaging.” |
Amazon SNS | Azure Web PubSub |
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"Hello world" code example | |
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Amazon SNS | Azure Web PubSub | |
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Realtime features | ||
Pub/Sub messaging Pub/Sub is a design pattern that lets any number of publishers (producers) push messages to channels (also known as topics). Multiple subscribers (consumers) can subscribe to a channel to consume published messages. Explore Ably's pub/sub messaging implementation | ||
Message queues A message queue is a form of asynchronous service-to-service communication. Messages are stored on a queue until they are processed. Note that each message is only consumed by one subscriber (consumer). Explore Ably's message queues implementation | Limited Amazon SNS integrates with Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) in order to offer traditional message queue functionality. However, Amazon SNS does not provide message queues by itself. | |
Presence Presence enables you to track the online and offline status of devices and end-users in real time and to store their state. Essential for chat apps and multiplayer games. Explore Ably's presence implementation | ||
Message history Message history provides a means to retrieve previously published messages. For this to be possible, message data must be stored (persisted) somewhere. Explore Ably's message history implementation | ||
Connection state recovery (stream resume) In the case of unreliable network conditions, clients may suddenly disconnect.Connection state recovery ensures that when they reconnect, the data stream resumes exactly where it left off. Explore Ably' s connection state recovery implementation | N/A | Limited Connection recovery with continuity is possible only when reliable JSON WebSocket or Reliable Protobuf WebSocket subprotocols are used. Note that these reliable subprotocols are currently in preview, and some changes are expected in the future.
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Guaranteed message ordering Ordering ensures that messages are delivered to consumers in the same order that producers publish them. Explore Ably' s guaranteed message ordering implementation | Limited Amazon SNS guarantees message ordering via FIFO topics. However, ordering is only guaranteed when sending messages to Amazon SQS FIFO queues. | Limited Message ordering is possible only when reliable JSON WebSocket or Reliable Protobuf WebSocket subprotocols are used. Note that these reliable subprotocols are currently in preview, and some changes are expected in the future.
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Exactly-once semantics Exactly-once is a system-wide data integrity guarantee that ensures each message is delivered to consumers exactly-once. Explore Ably' s idempotent publishing implementation | Limited Amazon SNS guarantees exactly-once semantics via FIFO topics. However, it only supports exactly-once when sending messages to Amazon SQS FIFO queues. | Limited Exactly-once delivery is possible only when reliable JSON WebSocket or Reliable Protobuf WebSocket subprotocols are used. Note that these reliable subprotocols are currently in preview, and some changes are expected in the future.
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Message delta compression Message delta compression enables you to only send the changes from the previous message to subscribers each time there’s an update, instead of the entire message. Useful for use cases where there is a significant degree of similarity between successive messages. Explore Ably' s message delta compression implementation | ||
Native push notifications Native push notifications can be used to deliver messages even when clients are offline. Useful for geolocation updates or news alerts. Explore Ably's push notifications implementation | ||
Webhooks Webhooks provide a mechanism to get messages and other types of events (such as clients entering or leaving channels) pushed to your servers over HTTP. Explore Ably's webhooks implementation | ||
Serverless functions A serverless function is essentially an isolated, single-purpose piece of code that is only executed when it’ triggered by an event. For example, you can use serverless functions to send a welcome message to clients when they become present on chat channels. Note that serverless functions are usually fully managed by cloud vendors. Explore Ably's serverless functions implementation | Limited Can only invoke AWS Lambda Functions. Amazon SNS does not support other serverless platforms, such as Azure Functions or Google Cloud Functions. | Limited Only integrates with Azure Functions. Azure Web PubSub doesn’t have in-built support for other serverless platforms, such as AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions.
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Built-in integrations Which popular services & systems are Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub integrated with? Explore Ably's library of integrations | Webhooks
Serverless functions
Streaming
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Serverless functions
Streaming
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Known limits and constraints Find out practical limits, such as the maximum message size, or the maximum number of concurrent connections. Explore the practical limits of the Ably pub/sub messaging platform | Publisher throughput Default quota of 20 SMS messages per second, and 10 email messages per second. Maximum message size 256 KB Maximum number of topics Default quota of 100.000 standard topics/account and 1.000 FIFO topics/account Maximum number of subscriptions Default quota of 12.500.000 subscriptions / standard topic and 100 subscriptions / FIFO topic | Publisher throughput: Outbound bandwidth per unit: maximum 8 MBps Maximum message size: 1 MB Maximum number of units: 100 Maximum number of concurrent connections: 1000 / unit (applies to the Standard tier)
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Supported development platforms, languages, open protocols and cloud models | ||
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Development platforms & operating systems Which popular development platforms and operating systems do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support via official SDKs? Explore the development platforms supported by Ably |
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Languages Which popular programming languages do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support via offical SDKs? Explore the programming languages supported by Ably |
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Open protocols Which popular open protocols do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support? Explore the open protocols supported by Ably |
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Cloud models Which popular cloud models do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support? |
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Global and reliable edge service | ||
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Edge messaging network with latency-based routing Latency-based routing ensures that clients are always routed to the nearest datacenter and point of presence. Explore Ably's routing mechanism that mitigates network and DNS issues | ||
Multi-region data replication (message durability) Multi-region data replication (storage) protects against single points of failure and ensures message data durability. Learn how Ably ensures message durability | ||
Uptime SLAs Here’s what the most common SLAs amount to in terms of downtime over a calendar year: 99.999% SLA = 5m 15s downtime per year 99.99% SLA = 52m 35s downtime per year 99.95% SLA = 4h 22m 58s downtime per year 99.9% SLA = 8h 45m 56s downtime per year 99% SLA = 3d 15h 39m 29s downtime per year Source: https://uptime.is/ | 99.9% | 99.9% |
Quality of Service What QoS guarantees do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub provide natively? Explore Ably's availability and uptime guarantees for our pub/sub messaging platform |
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Security | ||
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API key authentication The simplest way to authenticate. Involves using private API keys that you can usually create and edit via a dashboard. Recommended to be used server-side, as private API keys shouldn’t be shared with untrusted parties. Explore Ably's implementation of API key authentication | ||
Token-based authentication Which popular token-based authentication mechanisms do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support? Note that token-based authentication is usually the recommended strategy on the client-side as it provides more fine-grained access control and limits the risk of credentials being compromised. Explore Ably's implementation of token-based authentication |
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Configurable rules and permissions Which types of configurable rules and permissions do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support? Explore Ably's configurable rules and permissions |
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Message encryption Which types of message encryption do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub support? Explore Ably's message encryption mechanisms |
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Formal certifications Which formal certifications are Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub compliant with? Explore Ably's security and compliance for our pub/sub messaging platform |
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Pricing & Support | ||
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Free package What do the free packages offered by Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub consist of? Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform | Each month, Amazon SNS offers the following for free, but only for Standard topics: - 1 million requests per month - 100 SMS notifications (sent to US phone numbers) -1.000 Email/JSON notifications - 100.000 HTTP/s notifications Note: with the exception of SMS messages, each 64KB chunk of delivered data is billed as 1 delivery. For example, a single notification with a 256KB payload is billed as four deliveries. | You can only use one unit, with a maximum of 20 concurrent connections. You have a max quota of 20.000 messages per day. |
Pricing model How are the Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub pricing models calculated? Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform | Amazon SNS pricing is usage-based. Standard topics Once you deplete the free tier usage, the pricing is: - $0.50 per million Amazon SNS requests - $0.50 per million mobile push notifications - $2 per 100.000 email/JSON notifications - $0.60 per million HTTP/s notifications FIFO topics Pricing is calculated based on the number of published messages, the number of subscribed messages, and payload data: - publish requests are $0.30 per 1 million and $0.017 per GB of payload data - subscription messages are $0.01 per 1 million and $0.001 per GB of payload data Data transfer out of Amazon SNS is also charged. Pricing varies depending on the volume of data. For example, the first 1 GB per month is free, while the next 9.999 TB costs $0.09 per GB. Note that we have used US East (Ohio) as a reference point, but the pricing values differ across regions. | In addition to the free tier, Azure Web PubSub provides a standard tier, which gives you 1 million messages for free; additional messages cost $1 per million. You can use a maximum of 100 units, with the price being $1.61 per unit per day.
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Enterprise package What benefits do the Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub enterprise packages offer? Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform | There is no Amazon SNS-specific enterprise package. | There is no enterprise package with additional benefits / features for Azure Web PubSub - only the free and standard tiers mentioned above. |
Community Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform | 4 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “The global AWS community is present on a multitude of platforms, ranging from Stack Overflow and GitHub to Medium, Discourse, and even Reddit. Of course, the SNS community is significantly smaller in size, but objectively speaking, still pretty big. To be more specific, there seem to be a lot of people interested in the product. If you look at the AWS SNS forum, you can see that some of the threads have even 20.000 or 30.000 views. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of questions without an answer. You can find some cool stuff on GitHub, such as an extended client library for Java that enables you to publish messages bigger than 256 KB.“ | 1 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “Azure Web PubSub is a new service, and its community is basically non-existent. You can barely find any blog posts or demos built by the community.” |
Support What types of support options and response times do Amazon SNS and Azure Web PubSub offer? Explore Ably's support options for our pub/sub messaging platform | General support options Email, support ticket, phone, technical documentation, community support (e.g. forums or Stack Overflow). Enterprise support Amazon offers an enterprise package, which includes 24/7 phone, email, and chat access to Cloud Support Engineers, Infrastructure Event Management support, and a designated technical account manager. Response time < 24 hours for general guidance queries < 1 hour for Production system down incidents (only applies to Business & Enterprise support packages). | General support options: Email, support ticket, phone, technical documentation, community support (e.g. forums or StackOverflow). Enterprise support: The Professional Direct (ProDirect) plan includes 24/7 support, a Support API (to create & manage support tickets programmatically), and operational & architectural guidance from delivery managers. Response time: Within 8 business hours for Developer customers Between 1 and 8 hours initial response time (depending on severity) for Standard and ProDirect customers.
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Disclaimer: The information presented for Amazon SNS was last updated on 30 November 2020 and on 25 August 2022 for Azure Web PubSub. It is possible that some details may now be out of date. If you think that’s the case, please let us know so we can update them. In any case, you should not rely solely on the information presented here and must check with each provider before deciding to integrate or buy any of these two solutions.
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