Kinesis Data Streams handles real-time streaming data — clickstreams, IoT readings, app events arriving by the thousands per second. It captures the stream so consumers can process it as it flows in, not hours later in a batch.
Streams vs Firehose
This is the tested distinction. Data Streams gives real-time custom processing, you manage capacity (shards), and data is retained so you can replay it. Firehose just delivers streaming data into S3, Redshift, or OpenSearch with no code and no shards, but with a small buffering delay. Sub-second custom processing? Streams. Simple load-into-storage? Firehose.
Test yourself
You must ingest a real-time clickstream, run custom processing on each record within a second, and be able to replay data if processing fails. Which service?
- Kinesis Data Firehose
- Kinesis Data Streams
- AWS Glue
- Amazon SQS
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Data Streams supports real-time custom consumers and data retention for replay. Firehose (A) is for simple delivery into storage with buffering, not sub-second custom processing or replay; Glue (C) is ETL; SQS (D) is a message queue without replay.
Related topics
AWS Glue · Amazon Athena · Amazon Redshift
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