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What's the Difference Between Amazon Kinesis and Kinesis Data Streams?

Compare Amazon Kinesis and Kinesis Data Streams side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

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Comparisons
Amazon Kinesis
Kinesis Data Streams
Category

Analytics, Streaming ingestion

Analytics, Streaming
Description

Collect, process, and analyze real-time streaming data to get timely insights and react quickly.

Massively scalable, durable real-time data streaming service for continuous data capture.
Best for
  • Real-time analytics
  • Log & event data
  • IoT data streams
  • Video streams
  • Clickstream analysis
  • Real-time data ingestion
  • Log streaming
  • Event sourcing
  • IoT telemetry
Key features
  • Data Streams
  • Data Firehose
  • Data Analytics
  • Video Streams
  • Serverless scaling
  • On-demand mode
  • Enhanced fan-out
  • Server-side encryption
  • Data retention up to 365 days
  • Lambda integration
Pricing model

Pay per shard hour + PUT payload units

Pay per shard hour or on-demand per GB
Free tier

Yes

No
Expert take

“Kinesis Data Streams is the AWS-native option for real-time ingestion at scale. Each shard gives you 1 MB/s in and 2 MB/s out. For simpler ETL into S3/Redshift without managing consumers, Data Firehose is zero-administration and auto-scales.”
— Oleksii Bebych, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Data Streams gives you full control over shard management and consumer logic. Use it when you need custom processing with the Kinesis Client Library or Lambda.”
— Oleksii Bebych, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]
Product page

Learn more about Amazon Kinesis »

Learn more about Kinesis Data Streams »

When to use Amazon Kinesis or Kinesis Data Streams

Use Amazon Kinesis when:

  • Real-time analytics
  • Log & event data
  • IoT data streams
  • Video streams
  • Clickstream analysis

Learn more about Amazon Kinesis »

Use Kinesis Data Streams when:

  • Real-time data ingestion
  • Log streaming
  • Event sourcing
  • IoT telemetry

Learn more about Kinesis Data Streams »

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