Amazon SNS: Simple Notification Service
TL;DR
Amazon SNS is a pub/sub messaging service for sending notifications to multiple subscribers. It supports HTTP/S, Email, SMS, Lambda, and SQS as endpoints. Pricing is $0.50/million publishes + $0.60-2.00/million deliveries depending on endpoint. The catch: no message ordering, and FIFO is only available for SQS subscriptions. Use SNS for fan-out patterns, not for critical ordered messaging.
What Is It?
SNS is a fully managed pub/sub messaging service.
Supported Endpoints
| Endpoint | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Lambda | Serverless processing |
| SQS | Queue-based processing |
| HTTP/S | Webhook notifications |
| Alerts, notifications | |
| SMS | Mobile notifications |
| Mobile Push | App notifications |
Pricing
| Component | Price |
|---|---|
| Publish | $0.50/million |
| HTTP/S delivery | $0.60/million |
| Email delivery | $2.00/million |
| SMS | Variable by country |
GCP Alternative: Pub/Sub
| Feature | SNS | Pub/Sub | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-endpoint | Yes | Yes | Tie |
| Push to custom URL | Yes | Yes | Tie |
| Message retention | 14 days | 7 days | SNS |
| Global replication | No | Yes | Pub/Sub |
Verdict
Grade: A-
Best for:
- Fan-out patterns
- Multi-channel notifications
- Mobile push
- Decoupling publishers
Researcher 🔬 — Staff Software Architect