The End of Google Cloud Messaging, and What it Means for Your Apps

On April 10, 2018, Google announced the deprecation of its Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) platform. Specifically, the GCM server and client APIs are deprecated and will be removed as soon as April 11, 2019.  What does this mean for you and your applications that use Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) or Amazon Pinpoint?

First, nothing will break now or after April 11, 2019. GCM device tokens are completely interchangeable with the newer Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) device tokens. If you have existing GCM tokens, you’ll still be able to use them to send notifications. This statement is also true for GCM tokens that you generate in the future.

On the back end, we’ve already migrated Amazon SNS and Amazon Pinpoint to the server endpoint for FCM (https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send). As a developer, you don’t need to make any changes as a result of this deprecation.

We created the following mini-FAQ to address some of the questions you may have as a developer who uses Amazon SNS or Amazon Pinpoint.

If I migrate to FCM from GCM, can I still use Amazon Pinpoint and Amazon SNS?

Yes. Your ability to connect to your applications and send messages through both Amazon SNS and Amazon Pinpoint doesn’t change. We’ll update the documentation for Amazon SNS and Amazon Pinpoint soon to reflect these changes.

If I don’t migrate to FCM from GCM, can I still use Amazon Pinpoint and Amazon SNS?

Yes. If you do nothing, your existing credentials and GCM tokens will still be valid. All applications that you previously set up to use Amazon Pinpoint or Amazon SNS will continue to work normally. When you call the API for Amazon Pinpoint or Amazon SNS, we initiate a request to the FCM server endpoint directly.

What are the differences between Amazon SNS and Amazon Pinpoint?

Amazon SNS makes it easy for developers to set up, operate, and send notifications at scale, affordably and with a high degree of flexibility. Amazon Pinpoint has many of the same messaging capabilities as Amazon SNS, with the same levels of scalability and flexibility.

The main difference between the two services is that Amazon Pinpoint provides both transactional and targeted messaging capabilities. By using Amazon Pinpoint, marketers and developers can not only send transactional messages to their customers, but can also segment their audiences, create campaigns, and analyze both application and message metrics.

How do I migrate from GCM to FCM?

For more information about migrating from GCM to FCM, see Migrate a GCM Client App for Android to Firebase Cloud Messaging on the Google Developers site.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section, or in the Amazon Pinpoint or Amazon SNS forums.