Amazon SQS vs AWS AppSync
Discover how Amazon SQS compares to AWS AppSync, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.
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.
Suitable for:
- Scaling microservices
- Message processing
- Transaction processing
- Job queues
Not suitable for:
- Long message retention
- Large message sizes
Pros:
- Message locking
- Near infinite scalability
- Reliable delivery
- Dead-letter queues
- Reduced overhead
Cons:
- High cost at scale
- Vendor lock-in
- No support for routing
- Short message retention
What is AWS AppSync?
AWS AppSync is a fully managed service designed to streamline the process of building and deploying serverless GraphQL and pub/sub over WebSocket APIs. It enables developers to seamlessly handle and synchronize mobile app data in realtime across devices and users. Even when a mobile device is offline, AppSync permits data access and modification.
Suitable for:
- Chat rooms
- Collaborative apps
- Data broadcasting
- IoT apps
- Apps requiring low latency
Not suitable for:
- Where you need to use custom directives
- Service quotas
- Large-scale/complex projects
Pros:
- Managed GraphQL service & pub/sub over WebSocket APIs
- Backend management
- Connection recovery
- AWS service integration
Cons:
- Complex, especially the templating engine (VTL)
- High cost - may be more expensive than alternatives
- Limited plug-ins
- Single region solution
Compare Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync
Let’s compare Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync, 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 SQS and AWS AppSync. The content was last updated on 16 Aug 2024 for Amazon SQS and on 1 Aug 2024 for AWS AppSync. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.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 SQS No AWS SQS is a queueing system and not a pub/sub messaging system. | AWS AppSync Yes Read more |
Chat capabilities | Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more. | Amazon SQS No | AWS AppSync |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Amazon SQS No | AWS AppSync |
State sync capabilities | Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience. | 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. | AWS AppSync Partial Can be built on top of AppSync, but not available out of the box. |
Presence | Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime. | Amazon SQS Partial Partially supported, requiring integration with other AWS services. | AWS AppSync Partial "AWS AppSync does not provide events related to client connections or disconnections" (see source) - but it can be built on top of it by composing multiple AWS products. |
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 SQS No | AWS AppSync No |
Message interactions | Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads. | Amazon SQS No | AWS AppSync No |
Message history | Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages. | 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. | AWS AppSync Partial Looks like you can get message history, but only in combination with other AWS services see source |
Push notifications | Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive. | Amazon SQS Partial Amazon SQS can be integrated with AWS SNS to deliver push notifications based on events. | AWS AppSync Yes Find out how |
Message delta compression | Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent. | Amazon SQS No | AWS AppSync Yes See tutorial |
Programmatic management | Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI. | Amazon SQS Yes AWS provides comprehensive APIs and SDKs for programmatic management of its services. | AWS AppSync Yes You can perform programmatic management using the AWS SDKs (Software Development Kits), AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or infrastructure-as-code tools like AWS CloudFormation or AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit). |
| 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 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. | AWS AppSync Yes 250,000 API requests free per month for 12 months with the AWS Free Tier. |
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 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 | AWS AppSync You pay only for what you use with no minimum fees or mandatory service usage. You are billed separately for query and data modification operations, and for performing realtime updates on your data. Read more |
| Integrations & interoperability | |||
SDKs | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Amazon SQS
| AWS AppSync
|
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Amazon SQS
| AWS AppSync
|
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 SQS None natively; serverless functions are available through integration with AWS Lambda. | AWS AppSync
|
Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Amazon SQS Yes | AWS AppSync AWS AppSync doesn't directly integrate with streaming and queuing services for data ingress and egress, but you can use the following AWS services alongside AppSync to build scalable and event-driven architectures for your applications: Ingress:
Egress:
|
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Amazon SQS Partial AWS SQS provides an integration with Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring usage and metrics. | AWS AppSync |
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 SQS Yes Supports:
| AWS AppSync No |
| Quality of Service | |||
Scalability | Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance. | Amazon SQS No published metrics are available. | AWS AppSync No published metrics are available. However, this works on top of serverless technology which means theoretically it should scale to millions of concurrent connection with little to no tuning from the customer. |
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Amazon SQS Yes AWS SQS provides robust support for guaranteed message delivery, ensuring that each message is reliably delivered to its intended recipient. | AWS AppSync 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 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. | AWS AppSync 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 SQS Yes When using AWS SQS FIFO Queues, messages are delivered exactly once with no duplication. | AWS AppSync No |
| 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 SQS 99.9%. Read more | AWS AppSync 99.95 uptime SLA |
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 SQS Yes | AWS AppSync No |
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 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. | AWS AppSync Partial Single region by default - multi region deployment of AWS AppSync would require integration of Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables. |
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 SQS Yes Messages in AWS SQS are distributed across various availability zones in a region, ensuring high availability and scalability. | AWS AppSync Partial Not available by default - but could be built with the integration of Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables. |
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 SQS Latencies for SendMessage, ReceiveMessage, and DeleteMessage API requests range from tens to low hundreds of milliseconds. | AWS AppSync Unknown, although reports in forums suggest it is 200-500 ms. |
| Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Amazon SQS Yes | AWS AppSync Yes Learn more |
Token-based authentication | Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system. | 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. | AWS AppSync |
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 SQS Yes | AWS AppSync Yes Can set up auth with AWS IAM, and AWS IAM can be configured with any identity source (e.g. Okta). Learn more |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Amazon SQS Yes | AWS AppSync Yes Learn more |
End-to-end encryption | Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit. | Amazon SQS Yes | AWS AppSync |
Encryption at rest | Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach. | Amazon SQS Yes AWS SQS supports encryption at rest using AWS KMS (Key Management Service). | AWS AppSync Yes Done using AWS Key Management Service keys. This ensures that data in services like AppSync is securely encrypted. Read more |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Amazon SQS
| AWS AppSync
|
Alternatives to Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync
Whilst both Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync 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 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 real-time data streaming platform.
Alternatives to AWS AppSync
Amazon API Gateway is a service for building, deploying, and managing APIs.
Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database by Google, allowing developers to build realtime applications for web and mobile.
Apollo GraphQL is a scalable platform that unifies all your data sources to one GraphQL API.
Discover how Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Amazon SQS and AWS AppSync 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
