SNS is Amazon’s pub/sub notification service. A publisher sends a message to a topic, and every subscriber to that topic gets it — email, SMS, Lambda, SQS queues, and more. It’s built for fan-out: one message, many recipients.
SNS vs SQS
The classic pairing. SNS pushes a message to many subscribers at once (fan-out). SQS holds messages in a queue for one consumer group to pull and process. Need to notify several systems from one event? SNS. Need to decouple and buffer work for a worker? SQS. They’re often combined: SNS fans out into multiple SQS queues.
Test yourself
One event must immediately notify several different systems at once — a Lambda function, an email list, and an SQS queue. Which service?
- Amazon SQS
- Amazon SNS
- Amazon Kinesis
- AWS Step Functions
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. SNS fans out a single published message to many subscribers (Lambda, email, SQS) simultaneously. SQS (A) delivers to one consumer group by polling; Kinesis (C) is for streaming data; Step Functions (D) orchestrates workflows.
Related topics
Amazon SQS · AWS Lambda · Amazon CloudWatch
Ready to pass your AWS exam?
Stop guessing whether you’re ready. Our full-length, exam-realistic practice exams put you through the exact question style you’ll face — with a detailed explanation behind every answer, so you learn why, not just what.
- ✓ 6 full-length practice exams
- ✓ A detailed explanation for every single question
- ✓ Realistic, scenario-based questions — not memory dumps
- ✓ Lifetime access, kept current for 2026