Amazon EventBridge

EventBridge

You need a central event bus to route JSON events from diverse sources to multiple AWS targets based on content rules.

Regional serviceConcept reference · no service console simulation

Reach for it when

Orchestrating microservices by publishing events when data changes, routing them to target Lambdas or Step Functions.
Triggering scheduled maintenance tasks or database backups using cron-like pattern rules.
Ingesting and reacting to webhook events from third-party SaaS applications like Zendesk or Stripe.

Routing high-throughput, low-latency telemetry data or sensor clickstreams — use Kinesis instead.
Broadcasting simple notifications to human endpoints like SMS or emails — use SNS instead.
Passing messages to a single dedicated worker queue with strict ordering constraints — use SQS FIFO instead.

Service	Pick it instead when
SNS	Choose it when you need simple, high-throughput pub/sub topic broadcasting with low delivery latency.
Kinesis	Choose it when you need to stream and process massive volumes of sequential log data.

The model: Pay per million events ingested into custom or third-party event buses; default AWS system bus is free.
The line item that surprises people: Runaway loops where a Lambda function writes back to the event bus that triggers it can quickly generate huge bills.

EventBridge rules match event JSON structures exactly; minor key capitalization differences will cause silent routing failures.
The default delivery mechanism is at-least-once, meaning target functions must be written to handle duplicate events.
API destination targets are subject to rate limiting; EventBridge will throttle calls if external APIs return errors.

This page is a concept reference. Cost models are qualitative; confirm the current offering, Region and pricing before deploying.