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Microsoft Azure offers both Azure SignalR services and Azure Queue services. What I can't find is what are the pros/cons of using one versus the other.

Could you either provide those differences here or provide a link to a document or web page that compares them, I've not been able to find anything here or by using Google.

We have a web app and a mobile app these are connecting to Azure Functions.

We need to add the ability to send messages to a Windows Service at a remote location that connects to printers.

Originally I was thinking Azure Service Bus with Subscribe Queues so these remote systems would subscribe to a queue looking for messages for them to process with filters.

Now someone brought up using Azure SignalR instead so I'm trying to understand the differences between the two offerings from Microsoft so I know which one will be more scalable.

Web says print this item calls REST Azure Functions to generate what is to be printed and then that information needs to get to the remote location to be printed. These networks are not connected so there is no way to directly communicate to the printers which is why the thought of using Azure Service Bus messages or Azure SignalR messaging.

Chris Ward
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2 Answers2

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So, while doing some research I found a comparison between Azure Service Bus and Azure SignalR Service that tackles everything:

• Time to "hello world": In terms of signing up, both Azure Service Bus and Azure SignalR Service take about the same time to setup a new account and publish the first message.

• Realtime features: Pub/sub messaging is present in Azure service bus but it’s limited in Azure SignalR. However, you can make use of pub/sub in SignalR by using a combination of backplanes such as Redis or Event Grid which supports the pub/sub model.

• Pricing: Azure Service Bus doesn't offer any free package, but Azure SignalR offers a free Azure SignalR Service unit, which has a cap of 20.000 messages per day and can sustain 20 concurrent connections.

And more.

Hope this helps anyone looking to get more information on the comparisons between both services.

Azure Service Bus vs Azure SignalR Service

Ekunola Ezekiel
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you won't find because they solve different problems. Azure SignalR is a fully managed websocket service, while Azure Queue is a messaging service which is part of Azure Storage.

To compare you need to select services that solve the same problem.

For messaging, there are other options:

  • Azure Service Bus (queue / topics)
  • Azure Event Hubs
  • Azure Queue

and for those ones, you'll find comparisson about when to use each one of them.

Thiago Custodio
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  • Thank you, I will update my question but I'm looking for differences between Azure SignalR and Azure Service Bus – Chris Ward Mar 27 '20 at 21:28
  • friend, they solve different problems. You're pretty much trying to find differences between a bird and a lion – Thiago Custodio Mar 27 '20 at 21:52
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    based on what I know of both and what I've read they are both used to send messages between applications/components of an application – Chris Ward Mar 27 '20 at 22:39
  • agreed, but if you need bi-directional messages near real time (signalr), with you just use to decouple services, use the others – Thiago Custodio Mar 27 '20 at 22:58
  • I think @ThiagoCustodio is right, you cannot use a comparisson to pick one or another. You need SignalR or not, you need a Queue or not. You can need both, one or none. It is like questioning if you need a Hard Drive or Wifi instead – zameb May 19 '21 at 12:25
  • Given they are so different I think it would be easy to explain some of the differences rather than making metaphores about how obvious they might be. This is not answering the question. – Coder Cat Apr 18 '23 at 11:14
  • there are no metaphores in my answer, just said they solve different problems. – Thiago Custodio Apr 18 '23 at 12:15