Amazon SQS vs Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Discover how Amazon SQS compares to Google Cloud Pub/Sub, 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.

When to use Amazon SQS

Pros and cons of Amazon SQS

What is Google Cloud Pub/Sub?

Google Cloud Pub/Sub is a real-time messaging service. Pub/Sub is used for asynchronous messaging between different systems, and services, within your applications. It enables developers to build robust and scalable real-time applications.

When to use Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Pros and cons of Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Compare Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Let’s compare Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub, looking at key dimensions such as their core features, pricing, integrations & interoperability, quality of service, performance & availability and security & compliance.

Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub. The content was last updated on 24 Apr 2025 for Amazon SQS and on 24 Apr 2025 for Google Cloud Pub/Sub. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.

Alternatives to Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub

While both Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub 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 realtime data streaming platform.

See more alternatives to Amazon SQS

Alternatives to Google Cloud Pub/Sub

AWS SQS is a message queuing solution for decoupling apps, services & architectures.

Apache Kafka is an open-source realtime data streaming platform.

Azure Service Bus is a fully managed message service with message queues and Pub/Sub topics.

See more alternatives to Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Discover how Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Amazon SQS and Google Cloud Pub/Sub on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Ably vs Amazon SQS Ably vs Google Cloud Pub/Sub

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	Amazon SQS	Google Cloud Pub/Sub	Why this matters
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.
Chat capabilities	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.	Amazon SQS No	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Chat features such as group chat, emojis, and file sharing are not supported by Google Pub/Sub out of the box, which is intended to be used for service-to-service communication.	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.
Collaboration capabilities	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.	Amazon SQS No	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Google Pub/Sub recommends using other Google services like Firebase Realtime database to build applications that require functionalities like collaboration. Read more	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Google Pub/Sub does not support a state sync feature out of the box, but this can be achieved in combination with a realtime database.	Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes Google Pub/Sub provides monitoring dashboards that can be used to monitor subscriptions. Subscriptions can also be monitored through the Cloud Monitoring API. Read more	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.
Message interactions	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.	Amazon SQS No	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Pub/Sub can't retrieve acknowledged messages. You can use the Seek feature to mark them as unacknowledged and redeliver them or delete unacknowledged messages. Read more	Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes You can create a push subscription workflow for push notifications using Google Pub/Sub. Read more	Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.
Message delta compression	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.	Amazon SQS No	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No	With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Google Pub/Sub has usage-based pricing, based the number of published, delivered, and stored bytes. Read more	The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient.
Pricing plans	The pricing plans offered by cost.			The pricing plans offered by cost.
Integrations & interoperability
SDKs	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	Amazon SQS C++ Go Java JavaScript Kotlin .NET PHP Python Ruby Rust Swift	Google Cloud Pub/Sub C++ C# Go Java Node.js PHP Python Ruby	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	Amazon SQS HTTP/HTTPS Amazon SQS Long Polling	Google Cloud Pub/Sub None. Google Pub/Sub does not natively support any real-time protocols. However, you can implement WebSockets using other Google services like Google's Compute Engine.	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Google Cloud 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.
Streaming & queueing	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.	Amazon SQS Yes	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes The Google Monitoring, Alerting and Logging integration provides observability services. Read more	Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.
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 CodeCommit AWS CodeBuild AWS CodePipeline AWS CodeDeploy	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes Supports: Jenkins Google Cloud Build	Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Google Pub/Sub is built to be scalable and reliable. Google uses the service for their products to send billions of messages per day. You can read more about their architecture and limitations in their documentation.	Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Google Pub/Sub supports message ordering, but cannot always guarantee it even when this is enabled - for example, when dead-letter topics are enabled on subscriptions. Read more	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.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes Google Pub/Sub supports exactly-once delivery based on a Pub/Sub-defined unique message ID. Read more	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub 99.95% Read more	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	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.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes Google Pub/Sub supports synchronous data replication across three zones.	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.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	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.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub 100ms round trip	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Security & compliance
API key authentication	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.	Amazon SQS Yes	Google Cloud Pub/Sub No Google Pub/Sub only supports gcloud CLI credential and Application Default Credentials (ADC). Read more	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.
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.	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes SSO authentication in Pub/Sub is supported through Google Cloud IAM, OAuth 2.0, and Workforce Identity Federation, allowing integration with external identity providers like Azure AD or Okta. Read more	SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.
Rules for permissions and operations	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.	Amazon SQS Yes	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes Rules for permissions and operation can be configured using Identity and Access Management (IAM). Read more	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.
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	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.
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).	Google Cloud Pub/Sub Yes	Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.
Compliance	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.	Amazon SQS PCI DSS Level 1 certified HIPAA-eligible	Google Cloud Pub/Sub HIPAA	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.