# Amazon Kinesis

> For genuinely huge streams. It gets expensive fast.

- Verdict: Use when it fits
- Vendor: AWS
- Layer: [APIs, queues and events](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/layers/api-events.md). Job: High-throughput streaming
- Last reviewed: 18 October 2026, by Nicolas Dao (Cloudless Labs, Sydney)
- Web page: https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-kinesis/. The whole stack in one file: https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/brief.md

I reach for Kinesis only when throughput truly demands it. Most "streaming" workloads are queues in disguise.

## Use it when

- Sustained, very high throughput with multiple consumers replaying the same stream.

## Don't use it when

- Ordinary ingestion: SQS with batched Lambda is far cheaper.

## In my words: what hurts

- It gets expensive fast.

## Provisioning

Official Pulumi package · Official Terraform provider

## Instead, consider

- [Amazon SQS](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/aws-sqs/index.md): Most ingestion.

## Worked examples

- [IoT ingestion into Postgres](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/guides/iot-ingestion/index.md): 5,000 devices send a reading every minute. Where does the money go?

## Where it fits

- [Event-driven plumbing](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/use-cases/events.md): pick 5. Only when several consumers must replay the same ordered stream at high volume.

## Related

- [APIs, queues and events](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/layers/api-events.md): every tool in this layer, with its verdict
- [The whole stack in one file](https://cloudlesslabs.com/stack/brief.md): every use case and tool, for questions that span many
- [Map of every Markdown file on cloudlesslabs.com, with what each one answers](https://ask.cloudlesslabs.com)