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AWS Solutions Library

Virtual Waiting Room on AWS

Absorb large bursts of traffic to your website with a customized virtual waiting room

View implementation guide

Notice of discontinuation

Important: This solution will be retired in November 2025. Customers can continue using existing deployments (via CloudFormation or GitHub), but will need to assume responsibility for maintenance and API-related updates post-retirement.

After November 2025, the code will be archived in the GitHub repository for reference but will no longer receive updates or support. Customers can fork the repository to maintain their own version, explore enterprise-supported alternatives in AWS Marketplace (additional fees may apply), or implement their own solution using guidance from our Visitor Prioritization on e-Commerce Websites with CloudFront and CloudFront Functions blog post.

Overview

The Virtual Waiting Room on AWS solution helps buffer incoming user requests to your website during large bursts of traffic. It creates a cloud infrastructure designed to temporarily offload incoming traffic to your website, and it provides options to customize and integrate a virtual waiting room. The waiting room acts as a holding area for visitors to your website and allows traffic to pass through when there is enough capacity.

Examples of large-scale events that could produce a surge in website traffic include:

  • Start of sale for concert or sporting event tickets
  • Fire sale or other large retail sale, such as Black Friday
  • New product launch with broad marketing announcements
  • Exam access and class attendance for online testing and lessons
  • Release of medical appointment slots
  • Launch of a new direct-to-customer service that requires account creation and payments

Benefits

Users are assigned a queue number when they enter the waiting room. They maintain their position in the queue and only leave the waiting room to enter the target site when it’s their turn.

The solution can control traffic for large-scale events. Traffic spikes won’t overwhelm your systems, keeping your website up and running for your customers.

The solution generates signed, time-limited JSON web tokens (JWTs), which allow the downstream system's APIs to validate users have successfully gone through the waiting room before processing any requests.

The solution’s OpenID adapter provides a set of OpenID Connect (OIDC)-compatible APIs that can be used with existing web hosting software that support OIDC identity providers.

The solution provides a sample waiting room website to demonstrate a minimal end-to-end waiting room solution for customization.

How it works

You can automatically deploy this architecture using the implementation guide and the accompanying AWS CloudFormation template

View implementation guide

About this deployment

  • Version: 1.1.13

  • Released: 6/2025

  • Author: AWS

  • Est. deployment time: 30 mins

  • Estimated cost: See details

Deploy with confidence

Everything you need to launch this AWS Solution in your account is right here

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Get started fast. Read the implementation guide for deployment steps, architecture details, cost information, and customization options.

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Let's make it happen

Ready to deploy? Open the CloudFormation template in the AWS Console to begin setting up the infrastructure you need. You'll be prompted to access your AWS account if you haven't yet logged in.

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