Amazon Simple Queue Service
Amazon Simple Queue Service
Amazon SQS is AWS-managed distributed message queue — at-least-once Standard queues and exactly-once FIFO queues.
No ops — scales to any throughput automatically
Standard queues are at-least-once — duplicates possible
Call SQS.createQueue via the AWS SDK; sendMessage to publish, receiveMessage to consume, deleteMessage when done. Configure Lambda triggers to skip polling.
Uptime · 30-day window
GitHub activity
About this API
SQS is one of AWS's oldest services (2006). It solves the classic 'app A produces, app B consumes async' problem fully managed — no RabbitMQ or Kafka to deploy, no HA or scaling to worry about. Standard queues offer near-unlimited throughput with at-least-once delivery and no order guarantee; FIFO queues guarantee order and exactly-once with lower throughput.
The key concept is visibility timeout: when a consumer reads a message, that message is hidden from other consumers temporarily. If the consumer calls deleteMessage in time, consumption succeeded; otherwise the message becomes visible again and another consumer retries. This makes 'automatic retry on failure' a built-in capability. Pair with a dead-letter queue to catch poison messages, and you have a production-grade async framework. SQS commonly pairs with Lambda — Lambda automatically polls SQS and triggers your function, the most common serverless async pattern.
What you can build
- 1Decouple microservices so producers and consumers scale independently
- 2Buffer spiky traffic to protect downstream services
- 3Trigger Lambda for async batch processing
- 4Power task distribution systems
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- No ops — scales to any throughput automatically
- Visibility timeout retries failed consumers automatically
- FIFO queues guarantee order and dedup
Limitations
- Standard queues are at-least-once — duplicates possible
- Message size capped at 256 KB (use S3 + reference for larger)
- FIFO limited to 3,000 msg/s (30,000 with batching)
Getting started
Call SQS.createQueue via the AWS SDK; sendMessage to publish, receiveMessage to consume, deleteMessage when done. Configure Lambda triggers to skip polling.
FAQ
How big is the free tier?+
Always free: 1M requests/month. Beyond that, Standard queues are ~$0.40 per million requests.
Standard or FIFO?+
FIFO when you need order or dedup; otherwise Standard offers higher throughput at lower cost.
What's the max message size?+
256 KB. For larger payloads, put the body in S3 and send a reference — the Extended Client Library automates this.
Technical details
- Auth type
- api_key
- Pricing
- paid
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- python, javascript, java, go, ruby, csharp
- Response time
- 43 ms
- Last health check
- 6/26/2026, 6:22:16 AM
Endpoints
Parsed from the OpenAPI spec. Showing 12 of 40 non-deprecated endpoints.
/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=AddPermission/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=ChangeMessageVisibility/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=ChangeMessageVisibilityBatch/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=DeleteMessage/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=DeleteMessageBatch/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=DeleteQueue/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=GetQueueAttributes/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=ListDeadLetterSourceQueues/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=ListQueueTags/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=PurgeQueue/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=ReceiveMessage/{AccountNumber}/{QueueName}/#Action=RemovePermission28 more endpoints not shown. See the OpenAPI spec for the full list.
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