Amazon SQS vs Lightstreamer

	Amazon SQS	Lightstreamer
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 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example	2 / 5 5 = <30 min 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example
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	Sending a message to an Amazon SQS queue from Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Creating an Amazon SQS queue (AWS CloudFormation) Managing large Amazon SQS messages using Amazon S3	Basic chat demo in iOS / Swift Stock-List demo in Android / Kotlin Portfolio demo with .NET
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 information architecture is largely intuitive and helpful, which makes it easy to navigate through docs. From a content perspective, the documentation is good - instructions are generally clear and don’t leave room for interpretation. The getting started guide is easy to follow - if anything, the process is a bit tedious due to the number of steps involved. The code samples are good throughout. Official docs don’t contain a lot of tutorials - there’s barely any. It would have been good to see (more) use case-focused tutorials and demos. You can easily forget about the API reference, which is only listed on the docs homepage, but it’s not referenced in the developer guide at all.”	2.50 / 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 “Lightstreamer documentation is overall disappointing. First of all, it’s all over the place in terms of format: from GitHub READMEs to the most basic of HTML pages to PDFs. There’s even a slide deck. Resources are seldom cross-linked, which makes the docs hard to follow. The entire design of the website is from the last century. It’s aesthetically hideous, and the navigation experience is underwhelming. The only positive things are the API reference, which is quite comprehensive, and the GitHub tutorials, which are explained well.“
Dashboard or dev console Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Sign up for free and explore Ably's pub/sub messaging platform	5 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 “The Amazon SQS console allows you to perform queue-related CRUD operations easily. In addition, for each queue, you can manage various settings, such as Lambda triggers, access policy, or encryption. The console also allows you to monitor various metrics, such as the size of messages added to a queue or the number of messages available for retrieval from a queue. The functionality is intuitive, and the dev console is pretty easy to use once you learn your way around it a bit. As a minus, the UI, while simple, is quite boring and dry”.	4 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 “Lightstreamer provides a monitoring dashboard that shows various realtime metrics and stats related to the server-side, such as connections, sessions, or throughput. The event log is pretty useful, showing successful operations/events, warnings, and errors. It’s intuitive and straightforward to use, although the UI is dull and ugly. Unfortunately, there’s no dev console or portal with more extensive functionality to allow you to create and manage resources.“
SDKs Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account. Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform	9 SDKs Including: Ruby .NET JavaScript	10 production-ready client SDKs Including: Android iOS Node.js
API structure Reviewed by 3+ independent developers	4 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 “The Amazon SQS APIs are well described, intuitively named, and overall easy to understand. The API structure is decently consistent and simple across all SDKs. The API reference is well put together and helps you understand all the various operations and actions you can perform.”	3.25 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 “Lightstreamer provides APIs covering many languages, operating systems, and development platforms, such as Java, .NET, JavaScript, or iOS. There’s a separate API reference page for each SDK - a highlight in otherwise mediocre documentation. The references are pretty detailed, and the APIs are fairly well structured and consistent across SDKs. But they aren’t simple, and it takes some time to wrap your head around them. They perhaps don’t have the most intuitive naming conventions, and the code samples included are not as clear as they could be“.

Amazon SQS

Lightstreamer

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
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

2 / 5

5 = <30 min
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

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 information architecture is largely intuitive and helpful, which makes it easy to navigate through docs. From a content perspective, the documentation is good - instructions are generally clear and don’t leave room for interpretation. The getting started guide is easy to follow - if anything, the process is a bit tedious due to the number of steps involved. The code samples are good throughout. Official docs don’t contain a lot of tutorials - there’s barely any. It would have been good to see (more) use case-focused tutorials and demos. You can easily forget about the API reference, which is only listed on the docs homepage, but it’s not referenced in the developer guide at all.”

2.50 / 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

“Lightstreamer documentation is overall disappointing. First of all, it’s all over the place in terms of format: from GitHub READMEs to the most basic of HTML pages to PDFs. There’s even a slide deck. Resources are seldom cross-linked, which makes the docs hard to follow. The entire design of the website is from the last century. It’s aesthetically hideous, and the navigation experience is underwhelming. The only positive things are the API reference, which is quite comprehensive, and the GitHub tutorials, which are explained well.“

Dashboard or dev console

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

5 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

“The Amazon SQS console allows you to perform queue-related CRUD operations easily. In addition, for each queue, you can manage various settings, such as Lambda triggers, access policy, or encryption. The console also allows you to monitor various metrics, such as the size of messages added to a queue or the number of messages available for retrieval from a queue. The functionality is intuitive, and the dev console is pretty easy to use once you learn your way around it a bit. As a minus, the UI, while simple, is quite boring and dry”.

4 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

“Lightstreamer provides a monitoring dashboard that shows various realtime metrics and stats related to the server-side, such as connections, sessions, or throughput. The event log is pretty useful, showing successful operations/events, warnings, and errors. It’s intuitive and straightforward to use, although the UI is dull and ugly. Unfortunately, there’s no dev console or portal with more extensive functionality to allow you to create and manage resources.“

SDKs

Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account.

Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform

9 SDKs

Including:

Ruby
.NET
JavaScript

10 production-ready client SDKs

Including:

Android
iOS
Node.js

API structure

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

4 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

“The Amazon SQS APIs are well described, intuitively named, and overall easy to understand. The API structure is decently consistent and simple across all SDKs. The API reference is well put together and helps you understand all the various operations and actions you can perform.”

3.25 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

“Lightstreamer provides APIs covering many languages, operating systems, and development platforms, such as Java, .NET, JavaScript, or iOS. There’s a separate API reference page for each SDK - a highlight in otherwise mediocre documentation. The references are pretty detailed, and the APIs are fairly well structured and consistent across SDKs. But they aren’t simple, and it takes some time to wrap your head around them. They perhaps don’t have the most intuitive naming conventions, and the code samples included are not as clear as they could be“.

Amazon SQS	Lightstreamer
// SENDING A MESSAGE // Load the AWS SDK for Node.js var AWS = require('aws-sdk'); // Set the region AWS.config.update({region: 'REGION'}); // Create an SQS service object var sqs = new AWS.SQS({apiVersion: '2012-11-05'}); var params = { // Remove DelaySeconds parameter and value for FIFO queues DelaySeconds: 10, MessageAttributes: { "Title": { DataType: "String", StringValue: "The Whistler" }, "Author": { DataType: "String", StringValue: "John Grisham" }, "WeeksOn": { DataType: "Number", StringValue: "6" } }, MessageBody: "Information about current NY Times fiction bestseller for week of 12/11/2016.", // MessageDeduplicationId: "TheWhistler", // Required for FIFO queues // MessageGroupId: "Group1", // Required for FIFO queues QueueUrl: "SQS_QUEUE_URL" }; sqs.sendMessage(params, function(err, data) { if (err) { console.log("Error", err); } else { console.log("Success", data.MessageId); } }); // RECEIVING A MESSAGE // Load the AWS SDK for Node.js var AWS = require('aws-sdk'); // Set the region AWS.config.update({region: 'REGION'}); // Create an SQS service object var sqs = new AWS.SQS({apiVersion: '2012-11-05'}); var queueURL = "SQS_QUEUE_URL"; var params = { AttributeNames: [ "SentTimestamp" ], MaxNumberOfMessages: 10, MessageAttributeNames: [ "All" ], QueueUrl: queueURL, VisibilityTimeout: 20, WaitTimeSeconds: 0 }; sqs.receiveMessage(params, function(err, data) { if (err) { console.log("Receive Error", err); } else if (data.Messages) { var deleteParams = { QueueUrl: queueURL, ReceiptHandle: data.Messages[0].ReceiptHandle }; sqs.deleteMessage(deleteParams, function(err, data) { if (err) { console.log("Delete Error", err); } else { console.log("Message Deleted", data); } }); } });	// Lightstreamer server // Data adapter xml file <?xml version="1.0"?> <adapters_conf id="HELLOWORLD"> <metadata_provider> <adapter_class>com.lightstreamer.adapters.metadata.LiteralBasedProvider</adapter_class> </metadata_provider> <data_provider> <adapter_class>HelloWorldDataAdapter</adapter_class> </data_provider> </adapters_conf> // Package.json file for server requirements configuration { "requires": true, "lockfileVersion": 1, "dependencies": { "lightstreamer-client-web": { "version": "8.0.2", "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/lightstreamer-client-web/-/lightstreamer-client-web-8.0.2.tgz", "integrity": "sha512-UFEtoW+K2H+9PZNqdVGD6TqCBZNbsjC3TuZn5M1ee6D/aXlR8yzruKBXfQNdD0pgcpgpcKoMd/dyfeZxOf6EIg==" } } } // Lightstreamer client // HTML file with importing lightstreamer.min.js and require.js <html> <head> <title>Hello World with Lightstreamer</title> <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/require.js/2.3.6/require.js"></script> <script src="lightstreamer.min.js" data-lightstreamer-ns="Ls"></script> </head> <body> <div data-source="lightstreamer" data-grid="hellogrid" data-item="greetings" data-field="message">loading...</div> <div data-source="lightstreamer" data-grid="hellogrid" data-item="greetings" data-field="timestamp">loading...</div>

Amazon SQS

Lightstreamer

"Hello world" code example

// SENDING A MESSAGE

// Load the AWS SDK for Node.js
var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
// Set the region 
AWS.config.update({region: 'REGION'});

// Create an SQS service object
var sqs = new AWS.SQS({apiVersion: '2012-11-05'});

var params = {
   // Remove DelaySeconds parameter and value for FIFO queues
  DelaySeconds: 10,
  MessageAttributes: {
    "Title": {
      DataType: "String",
      StringValue: "The Whistler"
    },
    "Author": {
      DataType: "String",
      StringValue: "John Grisham"
    },
    "WeeksOn": {
      DataType: "Number",
      StringValue: "6"
    }
  },
  MessageBody: "Information about current NY Times fiction bestseller for week of 12/11/2016.",
  // MessageDeduplicationId: "TheWhistler",  // Required for FIFO queues
  // MessageGroupId: "Group1",  // Required for FIFO queues
  QueueUrl: "SQS_QUEUE_URL"
};

sqs.sendMessage(params, function(err, data) {
  if (err) {
    console.log("Error", err);
  } else {
    console.log("Success", data.MessageId);
  }
});

// RECEIVING A MESSAGE

// Load the AWS SDK for Node.js
var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
// Set the region
AWS.config.update({region: 'REGION'});

// Create an SQS service object
var sqs = new AWS.SQS({apiVersion: '2012-11-05'});

var queueURL = "SQS_QUEUE_URL";

var params = {
 AttributeNames: [
    "SentTimestamp"
 ],
 MaxNumberOfMessages: 10,
 MessageAttributeNames: [
    "All"
 ],
 QueueUrl: queueURL,
 VisibilityTimeout: 20,
 WaitTimeSeconds: 0
};

sqs.receiveMessage(params, function(err, data) {
  if (err) {
    console.log("Receive Error", err);
  } else if (data.Messages) {
    var deleteParams = {
      QueueUrl: queueURL,
      ReceiptHandle: data.Messages[0].ReceiptHandle
    };
    sqs.deleteMessage(deleteParams, function(err, data) {
      if (err) {
        console.log("Delete Error", err);
      } else {
        console.log("Message Deleted", data);
      }
    });
  }
});

// Lightstreamer server 

// Data adapter xml file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<adapters_conf id="HELLOWORLD">
    <metadata_provider>
        <adapter_class>com.lightstreamer.adapters.metadata.LiteralBasedProvider</adapter_class>
    </metadata_provider>
    <data_provider>
        <adapter_class>HelloWorldDataAdapter</adapter_class>
    </data_provider>
</adapters_conf>

// Package.json file for server requirements configuration

{
  "requires": true,
  "lockfileVersion": 1,
  "dependencies": {
    "lightstreamer-client-web": {
      "version": "8.0.2",
      "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/lightstreamer-client-web/-/lightstreamer-client-web-8.0.2.tgz",
      "integrity": "sha512-UFEtoW+K2H+9PZNqdVGD6TqCBZNbsjC3TuZn5M1ee6D/aXlR8yzruKBXfQNdD0pgcpgpcKoMd/dyfeZxOf6EIg=="
    }
  }
}

// Lightstreamer client 

// HTML file with importing lightstreamer.min.js and require.js

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello World with Lightstreamer</title>
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/require.js/2.3.6/require.js"></script>
    <script src="lightstreamer.min.js" data-lightstreamer-ns="Ls"></script>
  </head>

  <body>
    <div data-source="lightstreamer" data-grid="hellogrid" data-item="greetings" data-field="message">loading...</div>
    <div data-source="lightstreamer" data-grid="hellogrid" data-item="greetings" data-field="timestamp">loading...</div>

	Amazon SQS	Lightstreamer
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 Queues are supported only via the Lightstreamer JMS Extender, which connects to any third-party JMS server and makes JMS (Java Message Service) available on the Web. Any HTML page running inside a web browser and any Node.js application instantly become JMS clients, able to publish and subscribe on JMS topics and queues.
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
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
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
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 trigger AWS Lambda functions. Amazon SQS doesn’t have in-built support for other serverless platforms, such as Azure Functions or Google Cloud Functions.
Built-in integrations Which popular services & systems are Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer integrated with? Explore Ably's library of integrations	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP
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	Message throughput - Standard queues: nearly unlimited number of API calls per second per API action - FIFO queues: 300 API calls per second per API method (3000 transactions per second if you use batching). Maximum message size 256 KB Maximum number of queues Unlimited Maximum number of connections By default, a single SQS client has a connection limit of 50 connections. When more than 50 connections are used, the endpoint connections will get queued up, and performance might decrease.	Throughput Depends on server capacity (Enterprise and Enterprise Ultimate packages). 1 message/second for each subscription done by each client (community/free package). Maximum message size Unknown Maximum number of channels Unknown Maximum number of concurrent connections Depends on server capacity

Supported development platforms, languages, open protocols and cloud models
Development platforms & operating systems Which popular development platforms and operating systems do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support via official SDKs? Explore the development platforms supported by Ably	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET
Languages Which popular programming languages do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support via offical SDKs? Explore the programming languages supported by Ably	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala
Open protocols Which popular open protocols do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support? Explore the open protocols supported by Ably	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks
Cloud models Which popular cloud models do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support?	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed

Global and reliable edge service
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%	Unknown
Quality of Service What QoS guarantees do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer provide natively? Explore Ably's availability and uptime guarantees for our pub/sub messaging platform	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)

Security
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		Limited Lightstreamer authentication involves the usage of user & password credentials.
Token-based authentication Which popular token-based authentication mechanisms do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer 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	Ephemeral tokens JWTs	Ephemeral tokens JWTs
Configurable rules and permissions Which types of configurable rules and permissions do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support? Explore Ably's configurable rules and permissions	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights
Message encryption Which types of message encryption do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer support? Explore Ably's message encryption mechanisms	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption
Formal certifications Which formal certifications are Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer compliant with? Explore Ably's security and compliance for our pub/sub messaging platform	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR

Pricing & Support
Free package What do the free packages offered by Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer consist of? Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform	1 million Amazon SQS requests for free each month.	Lightstreamer’s free package (the community edition) provides a license for one server and unlimited clients. However, the message rate is throttled at one message per second, and some features are unavailable (such as clustering or TLS support).
Pricing model How are the Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer pricing models calculated? Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform	Beyond the 1 million free Amazon SQS requests each month (which applies to all customers), the monthly cost of requests is calculated as such: - $0.40 per 1 million requests (Standard Queues) - $0.50 per 1 million requests (FIFO Queues) Data transfer out of Amazon SQS is also charged. The first GB / month is free. Pricing varies depending on region and volume of data. For example, in US East (Verizon) - Boston, the price for the next 9.999 TB / month is $0.108 per GB.	Lightstreamer has a complex and confusing pricing model. First, you must choose between the community edition (free) and the enterprise edition (paid). When you select enterprise, you must then opt between the Enterprise or the Enterprise Ultimate package (the latter includes all client APIs, superior message rates, and all features). On top of this, you must choose a licensing scheme, of which there are six options in total. Some examples: Perpetual Upfront per Server License, Monthly Pay-as-you-go Per Core-Hour License, Annual Upfront per Client Licence. Once you choose a licensing scheme, you must also choose a license type, such as Demo, Evaluation, Production, or Hot-Standby. There’s no transparency regarding cost estimation or concrete numbers (at least not on their website).
Enterprise package What benefits do the Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer enterprise packages offer? Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform	There is no Amazon SQS - specific enterprise package.	Lightstreamer has an Enterprise Ultimate package that includes all client APIs (different programming languages), provides unlimited messages without throttling, and grants access to all features.
Community Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform	3.50 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “As we all know, overall, Amazon has a strong and diverse online community that spans various platforms and websites, like Reddit, Stack Overflow, or the AWS forums. With that in mind, the SQS community is not as active or helpful as you’d expect. For example, if you look at the Amazon SQS AWS forum, you will notice there are not that many questions asked over the past year. And while the published questions can get hundreds or even thousands of views, most of them barely have a few replies, if any at all.”	2 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “The Lightstreamer community is small. There is some activity going on on the Lightstreamer forums - usually people raising issues and asking for clarifications that arguably should have been clear from the documentation. Beyond forums, the Lightstreamer community is basically non-existent. There are only about 30 threads in total on Stack Overflow, and, although there are over 140 Lightstreamer repos on GitHub, they barely have a few stars or open issues and almost no pull requests.“
Support What types of support options and response times do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer 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 forums, phone, technical documentation. Enterprise support Lightstreamer provides 8x5 and 24x7 technical support for enterprise and enterprise ultimate packages. Response time Unknown

Pricing & Support

Free package

What do the free packages offered by Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer consist of?

Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform

1 million Amazon SQS requests for free each month.

Lightstreamer’s free package (the community edition) provides a license for one server and unlimited clients. However, the message rate is throttled at one message per second, and some features are unavailable (such as clustering or TLS support).

Pricing model

How are the Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer pricing models calculated?

Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform

Beyond the 1 million free Amazon SQS requests each month (which applies to all customers), the monthly cost of requests is calculated as such:

- $0.40 per 1 million requests (Standard Queues)

- $0.50 per 1 million requests (FIFO Queues)

Data transfer out of Amazon SQS is also charged. The first GB / month is free. Pricing varies depending on region and volume of data. For example, in US East (Verizon) - Boston, the price for the next 9.999 TB / month is $0.108 per GB.

Lightstreamer has a complex and confusing pricing model. First, you must choose between the community edition (free) and the enterprise edition (paid). When you select enterprise, you must then opt between the Enterprise or the Enterprise Ultimate package (the latter includes all client APIs, superior message rates, and all features). On top of this, you must choose a licensing scheme, of which there are six options in total. Some examples: Perpetual Upfront per Server License, Monthly Pay-as-you-go Per Core-Hour License, Annual Upfront per Client Licence.

Once you choose a licensing scheme, you must also choose a license type, such as Demo, Evaluation, Production, or Hot-Standby.

There’s no transparency regarding cost estimation or concrete numbers (at least not on their website).

Enterprise package

What benefits do the Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer enterprise packages offer?

Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform

There is no Amazon SQS - specific enterprise package.

Lightstreamer has an Enterprise Ultimate package that includes all client APIs (different programming languages), provides unlimited messages without throttling, and grants access to all features.

Community

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform

3.50 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

“As we all know, overall, Amazon has a strong and diverse online community that spans various platforms and websites, like Reddit, Stack Overflow, or the AWS forums. With that in mind, the SQS community is not as active or helpful as you’d expect. For example, if you look at the Amazon SQS AWS forum, you will notice there are not that many questions asked over the past year. And while the published questions can get hundreds or even thousands of views, most of them barely have a few replies, if any at all.”

2 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

“The Lightstreamer community is small. There is some activity going on on the Lightstreamer forums - usually people raising issues and asking for clarifications that arguably should have been clear from the documentation. Beyond forums, the Lightstreamer community is basically non-existent. There are only about 30 threads in total on Stack Overflow, and, although there are over 140 Lightstreamer repos on GitHub, they barely have a few stars or open issues and almost no pull requests.“

Support

What types of support options and response times do Amazon SQS and Lightstreamer 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 forums, phone, technical documentation.

Enterprise support

Lightstreamer provides 8x5 and 24x7 technical support for enterprise and enterprise ultimate packages.

Response time

Unknown

Disclaimer: The information presented for Amazon SQS was last updated on 16 October 2020 and on 7 December 2020 for Lightstreamer. 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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