Amazon SQS vs Socket.IO

Discover how Amazon SQS compares to Socket.IO, 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 Socket.IO?

Socket.IO is a library created in 2010 that provides realtime, bi-directional communication between clients and servers. It allows the management of connections, sending and receiving messages, and more. Built on top of the WebSocket protocol, it provides additional capabilities compared to raw WebSockets. WebTransport (a WebSocket alternative) is also supported.

When to use Socket.IO

Pros and cons of Socket.IO

Compare Amazon SQS and Socket.IO

Let’s compare Amazon SQS and Socket.IO, 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 Socket.IO. The content was last updated on 24 Apr 2025 for Amazon SQS and on 24 Apr 2025 for Socket.IO. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.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 Socket.IO

While both Amazon SQS and Socket.IO 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 Socket.IO

Azure SignalR is an Azure-hosted, fully managed realtime framework built on top of an open-source software library for Microsoft ASP.NET.

Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database by Google, allowing developers to build realtime applications for web and mobile.

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 Socket.IO

Discover how Amazon SQS and Socket.IO stack up against Ably

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

Ably vs Amazon SQS Ably vs Socket.IO

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	Amazon SQS	Socket.IO	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.	Socket.IO No Need to rely on a third party - e.g. use a Redis adapter to broadcast events to clients through the Redis pub/sub mechanism. Read more	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	Socket.IO Partial As it's a library, you need to create the chat capabilities yourself. But this can be done using Socket.IO.	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	Socket.IO Partial As it's a library, you need to implement collaboration capabilities yourself. But you can do this using Socket.IO itself.	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.	Socket.IO No The library does not support this. You would need to create a bespoke state sync capability or integrate a third party library to get state synchronisation.	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.	Socket.IO Partial It is the duty of your application to link a Socket.IO connection to a user account. Read more	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	Socket.IO Partial Rooms are available. It is possible to query for rooms and SIDs. See 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	Socket.IO Partial You would need to build the message interaction functionality yourself on top of Socket.IO. Learn more	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.	Socket.IO No The Socket.IO server does not store messages. Your application has to persist messages somewhere for the clients that are not currently connected. Learn 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.	Socket.IO No Socket.IO not support Push notifications. You would need to build this capability yourself and/or use another library. Learn 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	Socket.IO 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.	Socket.IO Yes The Socket.IO server is initialised in code. It is possible to configure the socket.IO server's configuration in code as well. Learn more	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.	Socket.IO Yes Open Source framework that uses the MIT license.	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	Socket.IO Free and open-source.	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	Socket.IO Client and Server APIs only. C++ Swift Java Javascript Typescript Node.js Python Golang Rust Dart .NET Kotlin	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	Socket.IO WebSocket WebTransport HTTP	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.	Socket.IO No It is not possible to trigger serverless functions with Socket.IO on it's own. See this Reddit post for more info	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	Socket.IO No Socket.IO does not offer native queues and streaming.	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.	Socket.IO Yes The Socket.IO admin UI can be used to have an overview of the state of your Socket.IO deployment.	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	Socket.IO No	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.	Socket.IO No published metrics. Socket.IO servers don’t communicate between them, so you need a way to route events to all clients, even if they are connected to different servers. This is made possible by using adapters, of which the Redis adapter seems to be the most popular choice.	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.	Socket.IO Partial By default, Socket.IO provides an "at most once" guarantee of delivery. From the client side, you can achieve an at least once guarantee with acknowledgements and timeouts.	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.	Socket.IO Yes Socket.IO guarantees ordering, no matter which low-level transport is used. 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.	Socket.IO No At least once or at most once only.	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	Socket.IO No It is a library, not a platform.	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	Socket.IO No	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.	Socket.IO No	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.	Socket.IO No As Socket.IO is a library, the implementation of it dictates points of failure and 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.
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.	Socket.IO Unknown	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	Socket.IO No	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.	Socket.IO No No native Token based auth. It is possible to use middlewares.	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	Socket.IO No No native SSO. It is possible to use middlewares.	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	Socket.IO No	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	Socket.IO No	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).	Socket.IO No	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	Socket.IO None.	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.