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Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
What it is
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a cloud, serverless service for capturing, processing, and analyzing live data streams. It can continuously capture gigabytes per second from hundreds of thousands of sources, making records available to multiple real-time analytics applications, Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink, or AWS Lambda within 70 milliseconds of collection. Stream data is synchronously replicated across three Availability Zones in an AWS Region. Each stream supports up to 20 consumers with dedicated read throughput, and retention can extend to 365 days. Security options include server-side encryption with AWS Key Management Service keys and private access through Amazon VPC. Integrations include DynamoDB, Aurora, Database Migration Service, CloudWatch, Lambda, Managed Service for Apache Flink, and Kinesis Data Firehose. Records can be delivered to Amazon S3 Tables as Apache Iceberg tables or to general-purpose S3 buckets in source format. Use cases include logs, events, real-time analytics, event-driven applications, and real-time AI or machine-learning workloads. Access is through API or web. Pricing starts at $0.03, and there is no AWS Free Tier availability.
For and against
For
- Captures data from hundreds of thousands of sources
- Availability within 70 milliseconds
- Retention up to 365 days
- Up to 20 dedicated-throughput consumers
- Private VPC access and KMS encryption
Against
- No AWS Free Tier availability
- Pricing starts at $0.03
- Delivery guarantee is at-least-once
- Usage-based plans have throughput and retention conditions
The verdict
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams provides high-volume ingestion, processing integrations, retention, and AWS delivery options for live data. Its paid model and lack of Free Tier should be considered alongside the chosen on-demand or provisioned configuration.
Who it suits
It suits teams building real-time streaming, analytics, event-driven, or machine-learning applications on AWS. It also fits developers using the listed client languages and AWS integrations.
Plans and prices
On-demand Advantage
$0.032/GB ingested in US-East · $0.016/GB retrieved in US-East · 25 MB/s minimum ingested and retrieved at account level · no fixed stream-hour charge
Read 1 Oct 2026 · aws.amazon.com
On-demand Standard
$0.08/GB ingested in US-East · $0.040/GB retrieved in US-East · $0.040 per stream-hour in US-East · 24-hour retention included
Read 1 Oct 2026 · aws.amazon.com
Provisioned mode
1 MB/s write or 1,000 records/s per shard · 2 MB/s read per shard · 25 KB PUT payload units · 24-hour default retention
Read 1 Oct 2026 · aws.amazon.com
On the record
- Availability
- Streaming data is synchronously replicated across three Availability Zones in an AWS Region.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Consumer fan-out
- A Kinesis data stream can have up to 20 consumers, each with dedicated read throughput.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Data delivery
- Kinesis Data Streams can deliver records directly to Amazon S3 Tables as Apache Iceberg tables and to general-purpose Amazon S3 buckets in source format.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Free tier
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is not currently available in the AWS Free Tier.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Getting started
- Users can create a stream through the AWS Management Console or CreateStream API, configure producers, and build applications to read and process records.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- AWS lists integrations with Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Aurora, AWS Database Migration Service, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Lambda, Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink, and Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Latency
- Streaming data can be made available to multiple real-time analytics applications, Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink, or AWS Lambda within 70 milliseconds of collection.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Retention
- Kinesis Data Streams supports retention for up to 365 days.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Scale
- It can continuously capture gigabytes of data per second from hundreds of thousands of sources.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Security
- The service supports server-side encryption with AWS Key Management Service keys and private access through Amazon VPC.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Security model
- AWS states that security is a shared responsibility and provides guidance for data protection, IAM access control, compliance validation, resilience, and infrastructure security.docs.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Use cases
- AWS describes use cases including log and event streaming, real-time analytics, event-driven applications, and real-time AI and machine-learning applications.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- What it does
- Amazon Kinesis Data Streams is a serverless, real-time data streaming service for capturing, processing, and analyzing data streams at any scale.aws.amazon.com · read 1 Oct 2026
