
Ask HN: Why AWS SNS for mobile push notifications? - jjeaff
We currently use a single, simple function that sends our push notifications direct to Apple servers.  I&#x27;m just curious as to the benefits of using SNS or any of the other similar services.  I don&#x27;t really get the &quot;scalability&quot; mantra since it seems that sending to the SNS api is just as taxing on the server as sending direct to Apple.  What am I missing?
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filleokus
I haven't used SNS myself, but as I've understood it, it's possible to make
one request to SNS which in turn sends notifications to all the users of your
application. So if you have many users and send many non-personalised
messages, you may make fewer requests.

I also think a selling point is the fact that you can send messages to
multiple Push-services (Apple, Google, Windows Phone etc) using one single
API, including SMS and email.

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jjeaff
Thanks very much. That clarifies things for me. I had read in their literature
that being able to send to lots of devices was one of the reasons, but doing
so in your own code is not difficult. But after searching around the web to
find out how, I am seeing a lot of people with inconsistent errors and bugs
with their code, so I think that answers my question.

I would also add that it appears SNS offers analytics on delivery rates for
push notifications. Which I didn't think was possible since the Apple API
doesn't seem to respond back with success or fail.

