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Amazon SQS vs Rails ActionCable

Discover how Amazon SQS compares to Rails ActionCable, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.

Amazon SQS logo

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
Rails ActionCable

What is Rails ActionCable?

Rails Action Cable is a framework built into Ruby on Rails that integrates WebSockets for real-time communication, allowing developers to create interactive applications.

Suitable for:

  • Small apps
  • Rails apps
  • Simple real-time use cases
  • Interactive features

Not suitable for:

  • Large-scale apps
  • Multi-protocol needs
  • High scalability requirements
  • Non-Rails apps

Pros:

  • Easy to integrate
  • Uses Rails conventions
  • Quick setup
  • Good for small apps

Cons:

  • Limited scalability
  • Lacks advanced features
  • Only supports WebSockets
  • Not for large apps
  • Limited protocols

Compare Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable

Let’s compare Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable, 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 Rails ActionCable. The content was last updated on 16 Aug 2024 for Amazon SQS and on 10 Oct 2024 for Rails ActionCable. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.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.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Supports basic pub/sub via channels.

Chat capabilities

Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.

Amazon SQS

No

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable does not have an out-of-the box chat solution, but provides the building blocks for a basic chat implementation, and several resources for self-building specific chat use cases.

Read more
Collaboration capabilities

Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.

Amazon SQS

No

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable provides basic support, but lacks advanced features like live cursors or 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.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable offers basic state sync capabilities, but it does not offer advanced tools to ensure continued synchronization between clients and devices.

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.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable doesn't offer presence out of the box, but can support presence when custom built on a user appearance channel.

Read more
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

Rails ActionCable

No

Message interactions

Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.

Amazon SQS

No

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable supports basic message interactions like broadcasting but advanced features like reactions require custom code.

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

Message delta compression

Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.

Amazon SQS

No

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

Yes

Rails ActionCable can be managed through Rails.

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.

Rails ActionCable

Yes

The Rails framework, including Rails ActionCable, is completely free and open-source.

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
Rails ActionCable

Completely free, no paid plans.

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
Rails ActionCable
  • Ruby
  • JavaScript
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
Rails ActionCable
  • WebSockets
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.

Rails ActionCable

None.

Streaming & queueing

Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.

Amazon SQS

Yes

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

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
Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

No metrics available.

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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

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
Rails ActionCable

No 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

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

Unknown.

Security & compliance
API key authentication

Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.

Amazon SQS

Yes

Rails ActionCable

No

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

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

Rails ActionCable

No

Rules for permissions and operations

Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.

Amazon SQS

Yes

Rails ActionCable

Yes

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

Rails ActionCable

No

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).

Rails ActionCable

No

Compliance

Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.

Amazon SQS
  • PCI DSS Level 1 certified
  • HIPAA-eligible
Rails ActionCable

None.

Alternatives to Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable

While both Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable 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

tech provider image

RabbitMQ is the open-source message broker supporting multiple messaging protocols.

tech provider image

ActiveMQ is an open-source message broker with support for multiple protocols, offering high availability and scalability for enterprise messaging.

tech provider image

Apache Kafka is an open-source real-time data streaming platform.

See more alternatives to Amazon SQS

Alternatives to Rails ActionCable

Pusher logo

Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications.

Socketio logo

Socket.IO is a library that provides realtime, bi-directional communication between clients and servers. It allows the management of connections, sending and receiving messages, and more.

Pubnub logo

PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.

See more alternatives to Rails ActionCable

Discover how Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Amazon SQS and Rails ActionCable 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