comparison of Kinesis Data Streams, Kinesis Data Analytics, and Kinesis Data Firehose — all three are part of the AWS Kinesis family, but they serve distinct purposes in a streaming data pipeline.
Kinesis Service Comparison
| Feature | Kinesis Data Streams | Kinesis Data Analytics | Kinesis Data Firehose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Role | Real-time data ingestion | Real-time processing of streaming data | Near real-time delivery to AWS destinations |
| Use Case | Capture high-volume, low-latency data | Analyze/filter/transform data in motion | Deliver data to storage/analytics automatically |
| Input Source | Applications, services, sensors | Kinesis Streams, Firehose, Kafka | Applications (direct), Streams, or API |
| Output Target | Lambda, EC2, KDA, custom consumers | Firehose, Lambda, S3, Redshift, etc. | S3, Redshift, OpenSearch, Splunk, HTTP endpoints |
| Data Storage | Temporary (24 hours default, up to 365 days) | No storage — processes on-the-fly | No persistent storage — buffers and delivers |
| Latency | Very low (milliseconds) | Low (seconds to sub-second) | Slight delay (usually <60 seconds) |
| Processing | External consumers handle processing | Built-in SQL or Apache Flink engine | Basic transformations and format conversion |
| Scalability | Shard-based or on-demand | Managed, autoscaling | Fully managed, scales automatically |
| Data Transformation | Not built-in | Custom SQL or Flink-based logic | Simple format changes (e.g., JSON to Parquet) |
| Delivery Reliability | At-least-once | At-least-once | Fully managed with automatic retries |
Quick Breakdown
1. Kinesis Data Streams
- Think of it as the raw pipe that captures data events in real time.
- Requires you to build consumers to read/process the data.
- Useful when you need custom or fine-grained control over data flow.
2. Kinesis Data Analytics
- The processing brain for data streams or firehose input.
- Lets you write SQL or Flink apps to perform filtering, windowing, joins, etc.
- It can both consume from and publish back to streams or firehose.
3. Kinesis Data Firehose
- The automatic delivery system.
- Easiest way to move data from your app or stream into S3, Redshift, OpenSearch, etc.
- Supports basic transformation, compression, and encryption out-of-the-box.
Example Scenario
Let’s say you’re monitoring website traffic:
- Kinesis Data Streams collects click events from all users in real time.
- Kinesis Data Analytics aggregates clicks per minute, filters bots, and enriches with geolocation.
- Kinesis Data Firehose delivers the enriched data to an S3 bucket in Parquet format for Athena queries.
Let me know if you want diagrams, pricing comparisons, or code examples using all three in a pipeline.