Amazon SNS vs Parse server
This Amazon SNS vs Parse server 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 | Parse server | |
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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 | 5 / 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." | 4.33 / 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 P: “Documentation is detailed, with many examples and tutorials from how to set up the parse server, connect clients to it, using different databases and hosting on different platforms”. O: “The documentation is extensive and at the same time offers higher level explanations for the more detailed sections.” W: “While the documentation offers a lot of information, examples and tutorials it could have been organized in a more clear manner and made more readable.” |
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 P: “The dashboard is easy to set up. You get a good overview of the stored data, so you can easily manage the database. Features such as webhooks, jobs, logs, API console and push notifications are easily accessible. Lack of performance metrics is a downside.” O: “The dashboard has a clean and simple UI with management sections for the webhooks, jobs, logs, configs and API console. It also includes a browsing view.” W: “The dashboard UI is easy to understand and self-explanatory. On the downside there is no informative metrics available but on the upside there is a lot of functionality and configurations options and the API console where you can send HTTP and GraphQL queries is a nice feature.” |
SDKs Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account. Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform | 9 SDKs Including:
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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." | 4.50 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 P: "The API across SDKs are mostly consistent, but support for Pub/sub is not available on all SDKs. Plenty of code examples of how to perform various operations”. O: “Most SDKs are well structured, simple and consistent. Although some are missing an API reference.” W: “The SDKs are intuitive and well structured for the most part. The SDKs could however have been more consistent.” |
Amazon SNS | Parse server |
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"Hello world" code example | |
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Amazon SNS | Parse server | |
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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 | Limited There is support for pub/sub messaging using LiveQueries in the Javascript SDK, which uses WebSockets to subscribe & publish to channels. But LiveQueries is limited to the Javascript SDK. | |
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 | Limited One could keep track of online clients by using the LiveQuery triggers to know whether or not a client is connected. But there is no built functionality for this. | |
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 | |
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. | |
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 Idempodency enforcement exists, as an experimental feature that may not be appropriate for production. |
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 Cloud functions are used in parse server to run single-prupose piece of code. But is up to you to host the parse server, where the cloud functions are invoked from. The pricing model is different, since you are hosting the parse server yourself, you can invoke the cloud function for as many times as you like. Services like AWS Lambda charges you for the number of requests made and the duration of those requests. |
Built-in integrations Which popular services & systems are Amazon SNS and Parse server 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 N/A Maximum message size N/A Maximum number of topics N/A Maximum number of connections N/A |
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 Parse server support via official SDKs? Explore the development platforms supported by Ably |
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Languages Which popular programming languages do Amazon SNS and Parse server 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 Parse server support? Explore the open protocols supported by Ably |
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Cloud models Which popular cloud models do Amazon SNS and Parse server 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 | N/A | |
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 | N/A | |
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% | N/A |
Quality of Service What QoS guarantees do Amazon SNS and Parse server 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 Parse server 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 Parse server support? Explore Ably's configurable rules and permissions |
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Message encryption Which types of message encryption do Amazon SNS and Parse server support? Explore Ably's message encryption mechanisms |
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Formal certifications Which formal certifications are Amazon SNS and Parse server 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 Parse server 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. | N/A |
Pricing model How are the Amazon SNS and Parse server 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. | N/A |
Enterprise package What benefits do the Amazon SNS and Parse server enterprise packages offer? Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform | There is no Amazon SNS-specific enterprise package. | N/A |
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.“ | 4 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 P: “Parse platform has 18k stars on github and 18k questions on Stack Overflow. It’s safe to say there is a solid community. There exist plenty of SDKs developed by the community.” O: “Parse platform has an extensive community with a lot of activity on both Github and StackOverflow, it also has a presence on Twitter.” W: “Parse has an active community with 18k stars on GitHub and there is also a substantial amount of questions about Parse Server on StackOverflow. There is a gitter for ParsePlatform but it doesn't seem quite as active.” |
Support What types of support options and response times do Amazon SNS and Parse server 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). | N/A |
Disclaimer: The information presented for Amazon SNS was last updated on 30 November 2020 and on 28 February 2021 for Parse server. 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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