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  1. Stackups
  2. Utilities
  3. Background Jobs
  4. Message Queue
  5. Amazon SQS vs NServiceBus

Amazon SQS vs NServiceBus

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS
Stacks2.8K
Followers2.0K
Votes171
NServiceBus
NServiceBus
Stacks76
Followers132
Votes2

Amazon SQS vs NServiceBus: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) and NServiceBus. Both of these tools are widely used in distributed systems for messaging purposes. While SQS is a managed message queue service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), NServiceBus is an open-source messaging framework for .NET applications.

  1. Message Persistence: One key difference between Amazon SQS and NServiceBus is their approach to message persistence. Amazon SQS stores messages in a highly durable manner, ensuring minimal message loss even in the event of failures. On the other hand, NServiceBus relies on the underlying transport mechanism, such as RabbitMQ or Azure Service Bus, for message persistence.

  2. Message Ordering: Another significant difference is the guarantee of message ordering. Amazon SQS provides strict ordering of messages within a single message group, ensuring that the order in which messages are sent is the order in which they are received. NServiceBus, on the other hand, does not provide strict ordering guarantees by default. It allows for concurrent processing of messages, which may result in a different order of execution.

  3. Scalability: Both SQS and NServiceBus support scalability, but they differ in how they handle it. SQS is a fully managed service that automatically scales based on the workload, providing high throughput and elasticity without any manual intervention. NServiceBus, being a framework, requires explicit scaling and configuration based on the underlying transport mechanism.

  4. Message Routing: When it comes to message routing, NServiceBus provides a rich set of features for routing messages to specific endpoints or subscribers based on various criteria. It supports publish-subscribe patterns, message routing based on content, and dynamic routing. Amazon SQS, on the other hand, has limited routing capabilities and primarily relies on the ability to subscribe to specific queues.

  5. Protocol Support: NServiceBus supports various messaging protocols such as AMQP, MSMQ, Azure Service Bus, RabbitMQ, and more. This allows developers to choose the transport mechanism that best suits their needs and existing infrastructure. In contrast, Amazon SQS uses its proprietary protocol and is tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem.

  6. Pricing: Pricing is another key difference between SQS and NServiceBus. Amazon SQS follows a pay-per-use model, where you are charged based on the number of requests and the amount of data transferred. NServiceBus, being an open-source framework, does not have any direct costs associated with it. However, you may need to consider the costs of the underlying transport mechanism used with NServiceBus.

In summary, Amazon SQS and NServiceBus differ in terms of message persistence, message ordering, scalability, message routing, protocol support, and pricing. The choice between these two tools depends on the specific requirements and constraints of your distributed system.

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Advice on Amazon SQS, NServiceBus

MITHIRIDI
MITHIRIDI

Software Engineer at LightMetrics

May 8, 2020

Needs adviceonAmazon SQSAmazon SQSAmazon MQAmazon MQ

I want to schedule a message. Amazon SQS provides a delay of 15 minutes, but I want it in some hours.

Example: Let's say a Message1 is consumed by a consumer A but somehow it failed inside the consumer. I would want to put it in a queue and retry after 4hrs. Can I do this in Amazon MQ? I have seen in some Amazon MQ videos saying scheduling messages can be done. But, I'm not sure how.

303k views303k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS
NServiceBus
NServiceBus

Transmit any volume of data, at any level of throughput, without losing messages or requiring other services to be always available. With SQS, you can offload the administrative burden of operating and scaling a highly available messaging cluster, while paying a low price for only what you use.

Performance, scalability, pub/sub, reliable integration, workflow orchestration, and everything else you could possibly want in a service bus.

A queue can be created in any region.;The message payload can contain up to 256KB of text in any format. Each 64KB ‘chunk’ of payload is billed as 1 request. For example, a single API call with a 256KB payload will be billed as four requests.;Messages can be sent, received or deleted in batches of up to 10 messages or 256KB. Batches cost the same amount as single messages, meaning SQS can be even more cost effective for customers that use batching.;Long polling reduces extraneous polling to help you minimize cost while receiving new messages as quickly as possible. When your queue is empty, long-poll requests wait up to 20 seconds for the next message to arrive. Long poll requests cost the same amount as regular requests.;Messages can be retained in queues for up to 14 days.;Messages can be sent and read simultaneously.;Developers can get started with Amazon SQS by using only five APIs: CreateQueue, SendMessage, ReceiveMessage, ChangeMessageVisibility, and DeleteMessage. Additional APIs are available to provide advanced functionality.
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Statistics
Stacks
2.8K
Stacks
76
Followers
2.0K
Followers
132
Votes
171
Votes
2
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 62
    Easy to use, reliable
  • 40
    Low cost
  • 28
    Simple
  • 14
    Doesn't need to maintain it
  • 8
    It is Serverless
Cons
  • 2
    Has a max message size (currently 256K)
  • 2
    Difficult to configure
  • 2
    Proprietary
  • 1
    Has a maximum 15 minutes of delayed messages only
Pros
  • 1
    Brings on-prem issues to the cloud
  • 1
    Not as good as alternatives, good job security

What are some alternatives to Amazon SQS, NServiceBus?

Kafka

Kafka

Kafka is a distributed, partitioned, replicated commit log service. It provides the functionality of a messaging system, but with a unique design.

RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ gives your applications a common platform to send and receive messages, and your messages a safe place to live until received.

Celery

Celery

Celery is an asynchronous task queue/job queue based on distributed message passing. It is focused on real-time operation, but supports scheduling as well.

NSQ

NSQ

NSQ is a realtime distributed messaging platform designed to operate at scale, handling billions of messages per day. It promotes distributed and decentralized topologies without single points of failure, enabling fault tolerance and high availability coupled with a reliable message delivery guarantee. See features & guarantees.

ActiveMQ

ActiveMQ

Apache ActiveMQ is fast, supports many Cross Language Clients and Protocols, comes with easy to use Enterprise Integration Patterns and many advanced features while fully supporting JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4. Apache ActiveMQ is released under the Apache 2.0 License.

ZeroMQ

ZeroMQ

The 0MQ lightweight messaging kernel is a library which extends the standard socket interfaces with features traditionally provided by specialised messaging middleware products. 0MQ sockets provide an abstraction of asynchronous message queues, multiple messaging patterns, message filtering (subscriptions), seamless access to multiple transport protocols and more.

Apache NiFi

Apache NiFi

An easy to use, powerful, and reliable system to process and distribute data. It supports powerful and scalable directed graphs of data routing, transformation, and system mediation logic.

Gearman

Gearman

Gearman allows you to do work in parallel, to load balance processing, and to call functions between languages. It can be used in a variety of applications, from high-availability web sites to the transport of database replication events.

Memphis

Memphis

Highly scalable and effortless data streaming platform. Made to enable developers and data teams to collaborate and build real-time and streaming apps fast.

IronMQ

IronMQ

An easy-to-use highly available message queuing service. Built for distributed cloud applications with critical messaging needs. Provides on-demand message queuing with advanced features and cloud-optimized performance.

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