Event Stream Sources Overview
Learn about the Event Stream and Reverse ETL source types supported by RudderStack.
The event data originates via a source in RudderStack. The most common event sources are your apps and web properties, but can include third-party cloud apps, server integrations, and even your own data warehouse.
The following sections provide more detail on the available source types, with links to the setup guides for each source.
Tip:
If you’re new to RudderStack, go through the
Quickstart guide to create your first source.
Event Streams
RudderStack’s Event Streams feature lets you collect event data from all your sites and applications and route it to a wide array of customer tools and data warehouses.
SDKs
RudderStack provides open source SDKs for web, mobile, and server applications:
Web
Track customer event data from your website and web apps and send it to the specified destinations:
Mobile
Use native mobile SDKs for the mobile operating systems and development frameworks:
Server
Use server-side SDKs to track event data from your backend applications and send it to the specified destinations:
Cloud Apps
RudderStack lets you ingest event data from your cloud apps and route it to the desired destinations.
HTTP source
You can also leverage the HTTP source to send events to RudderStack directly via HTTP API calls from your server-side applications:
Custom webhook
You can also add any source that supports a webhook, use it to ingest events, and send them to your preferred destinations via RudderStack.
Reverse ETL
With RudderStack’s Reverse ETL capabilities, you can use your data warehouse as a data source. You can tap into your warehouse data and enrich data pipelines elsewhere in your stack, for enhanced customization, personalization, and targeting.
API
Use a native SDK applicable for your environment wherever possible as it adds user context automatically, batches events, and retries on delivery failure.
However, if no SDK fits your stack, create an HTTP source and send events with one of these APIs:
| API | Request method | When to use |
|---|
| HTTP API | POST | Server-side apps, or any client that can send authenticated POST requests with a JSON body |
| Pixel API | GET | Environments where POST is not possible — for example, HTML/CSS-only UIs, email open tracking, or impression tracking via an <img> tag (similar to legacy analytics pixels) |
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