ThingWorx V/S AWS IoT: A Comparison You Need To Know

With technologies like AR, VR, and IoT becoming kind of popular and omnipresent in the market these days, choosing the right cloud computing platform to run their operations has become inevitable. The solution you choose can decide whether you break or make your project. You need to find the right cloud computing platform which can offer you the needed performance and speed and it can be a tough job.

The kind of cloud computing solution you wish to choose depends on the kind of project you are handling and its complexity. If you have a simple project in hand like hosting HR systems you can go for any cloud providers that are available in the market. When you are working on an IoT project, you need to be sure that you find a cloud solution with the needed features and tools to make your project run as needed.  

About ThingWorx IoT platform

ThingWorx is an IoT platform that can be used to store and process the data of sensors. Using this IoT platform data can be processed in real-time and based on received results, user-specific tasks can be triggered. The IoT devices and this platform can communicate with each other in a bi-directional manner.

What can ThingWorx help with?

• Easily and quickly come up with full-fledged industrial IoT solutions and better AR experiences.
• Now access multiple data sources by connecting different applications and devices.
• For real-time insights, recommendations, and predictions analyze complex industrial IoT data.
• Manage the performance of different connected devices, systems, and processes.
• Engage with physical objects in a more actionable and contextualized manner.
• Boost ROI on different IoT initiatives taken at the industrial level.

Key components of ThingWorx

• ThingWorx Foundation: This is the main component of ThingWorx and it keeps the rest five connected. It comes with model-based rapid application development tools. Now this includes the drag-and-drop mashup builder that can be used for assembling applications and dashboards.
• ThingWorx Utilities: Using this component, business users can define, monitor, manage, and optimize different connected devices. It also lets to create and manage different business processes for IoT devices.
• Vuforia: This component can help you with AR development.
• ThingWorx Analytics: Using this component the data collected from different devices can be used to get maximum value through predictive analytics and simulation features. It even looks into real-time data for patterns and anomalies.

About AWS IoT

AWS IoT offers bi-directional communication between a range of connected devices and the AWS Cloud in a secure manner. Now, these devices include embedded micro-controllers, actuators, sensors, or small appliances. This way data can be collected from different devices, the data can be analyzed properly after being stored. It is possible to control and manage such devices through smartphones and tablets by developing the right applications.

Things to know about AWS IoT

AWS IoT Device SDK

It helps you quickly and easily connect your mobile app or hardware device to AWS IoT Core. It helps your devices connect, exchange, and authenticate messages by using AWS IoT Core by using WebSockets protocols, HTTP or MQTT. It offers support for Arduino, JavaScript, and C and also includes the porting guide, the developer guide, and the client libraries.

Message Broker

The Message Broker works as a medium to transmit messages to and fro to all applications and IoT devices. Message Broker offers the flexibility to send and receive as many messages as you want from numerous devices. You can either have one-to-one messaging or one-to-one million messaging options.

Device Gateway

IoT devices get connected with AWS through the Device Gateway and it serves as its entry point. All the active connections are managed by the Device Gateway and for multiple protocols it implements semantics. This way the communication to AWS IoT Core is made efficiently and securely.

Authentication and authorization

At all points of connection, AWS IoT Core offers encryption and authentication which is mutual. This ensures that data gets exchanged between devices only after it has shared its identity to AWS IoT Core. AWS IoT Core supports X.509 certificate-based authentication, AWS method for authentication, and the authentication created based on the token.

ThingWorx V/s AWS: Comparison of features

IoT commitment

PTC is one of the leading companies in the manufacturing industry which has more than 3 decades of experience which has helped it to build ThingWorx the way it is standing strong today in handling different projects. PTC also has proud projects like PLM, CAD, and other 3D design products apart from this IoT platform. PTC was quite early in opting for IoT and compared to its ThingWorx competitors, implemented many tools that can offer support to the technology. All this build-up has turned ThingWorx to be a perfect solution for the industrial environment and so it is capable to meet the needs of product designers and engineers.

AWS or Amazon Web Services has come to be a part of the Amazon platform since 2006. Amazon is said to have a good knowledge regarding retail markets and computing but things are not the same in the case of product design and manufacturing. When AWS and IoT are discussed together, it is mostly related in terms of consumer products like refrigerators and cars. AWS IoT does not have many industrial consumer products that are fulfilling critical jobs.

Analytics

ThingWorx and AWS –both come with built-in analytics. ThingWorx is more focused on crucial industry metrics. Moreover, it even comes with tutorials and guides that can help you know how to set up and use predictive analytics, create alerts, put analytics models to work, and monitor devices. Such kind additional insights that come with ThingWorx help the companies to take care of their different operational issues in an effective manner.

On the other hand, AWS is all about general business analytics and things related to big data solutions and things specific to IT. When discussing the business metrics, AWS focuses on the general metrics which are used by finance, marketing, sales, and HR. However, AWS does not come with metrics that are related to IoT or new product introduction like productivity, utilization, MVP, SPC, OEE, predictive maintenance, or other statistics related to project management which is very crucial for the said industry.

Developer Tools

AWS comes with a wide variety of tools that can help developers who are working across different industries. In case you are planning to get done with your project just by making use of a general tool then AWS can prove to be the best platform for your work to start.

In case you want to use a tool that has been specifically designed for your project needs then you need to think about ThingWorx. ThingWorx comes with tools for data model design, REST APIs, and IoT apps and their connections. All such tools are important for projects taken up by product-centric companies. Here every component has been designed in a way to streamline and improve product design and manufacturing. 

Industry expertise

When we look at things from their respective industries, both of them have their set of strengths. AWS is more of a general platform that can be helpful in the case of general developer knowledge whereas, ThingWorx is more focused on industries that are product-centered. This means ThingWorx can be a better option if you are handling a project related to IoT or VR.

Resource and support

To help the user navigate and understand the products, both companies offer enough resources.  They even offer some other features and all these depend on the kind of project you are working on. Compared to AWS, ThingWorx is more focused on operations and issues at the industrial level. So if you are looking for something focused on industry, you will be able to find what you are looking for in the tutorial and support available for ThingWorx.

AR and VR Tools

Both AWS and ThingWorx are said to be having expertise in this area and so what you prefer to choose is completely dependent on the kind of application you are dealing with. ThingWorx can be a good solution for complex industrial projects while AWS can be used for consumer projects.

Security

We can agree without any doubt that security is critical for computing today and both ThingWorx and AWS deliver it.

Final thoughts

ThingWorx and AWS are two of the top cloud computing platforms for IoT that you could choose to go for your business solution development. Here we have tried to compare both the platforms in terms of their different features. So, what to choose for your business solution? Now there is no direct answer to this question. Depending on the type and complexity of the project, it is up to you to choose what works in your best interest.

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