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Amazon AWS vs Amazon Lightsail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon AWS
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
256
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (2nd)
Amazon Lightsail
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon AWS is 12.7%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

HarishMahanta - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable cloud service enhances ERP management with advanced security features
I use Amazon AWS for ERP implementation. My responsibility is to integrate our application into the AWS cloud and provide AI solutions to the infrastructure AWS is stable and has provided a reliable infrastructure for my organization. AWS offers add-on services such as security and automated…
Atul Chauhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-manage features optimize server management and reduce costs
In terms of features, Amazon Lightsail can auto-manage the server with capabilities such as Auto Scaling and Placement Groups. They can auto-manage, and the billing cost is reduced because they have limited technology, which helps to optimize our cost billing for AWS. The benefit of using Amazon Lightsail over the AWS console management is that it is a small platform that is easy to understand, as it has only the instance, DNS, Route 53, snapshots, backups, and load balancing network. Amazon Lightsail has five technologies, and because it's easy to use and everyone can understand it, anyone can manage the server or add anything to that server, making it easy to understand. The initial setup is easy to do.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cloud Trail API log storage."
"With the pay-as-you-go model, we don't have to predict future IT needs. We can just scale up as we want. That helps with a lot of agility in deploying stuff in our IT infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is that it is simple."
"We write a lot of Lambda functions for various services, as well as serverless functions."
"User friendly solution."
"In general, the cost management in Amazon is complicated. It's not too straightforward."
"Amazon AWS is good in terms of deployment and user experience. Their certificate management and load balancer are also good features."
"It's highly scalable. It's guaranteed 99.99% uptime, and it shows you can scale up or scale out whenever you need more space."
"The most valuable features are the usability and customer service."
"EC2 instances are pre-configured and upgraded, so you can simply select and instantly pay for an EC2 instance to set up WordPress, Node.js, or a server container using Docker."
"The benefit of using Amazon Lightsail over the AWS console management is that it is a small platform that is easy to understand, as it has only the instance, DNS, Route 53, snapshots, backups, and load balancing network."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"I find Lightsail particularly valuable for hosting WordPress as it is easier to set up than a bare metal server, which requires extensive configuration and package installations."
"We use Amazon Lightsail for hosting security components in-house and AI modules."
"In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed."
"Implementations are completed with a few clicks, allowing efficient transitions to other development stages, and setup is easy whether for online support or basic business requirements."
 

Cons

"The cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Amazon AWS could improve its user interface to make it more user-friendly, especially for people who are not highly technical."
"One of the issues I'm facing is that my RDS SQL Server version 5.8 is reaching its end of life, and I need to upgrade it to a customer-wanted version. I want to do this on Graviton instances, but Graviton only starts with version 8.0 and currently doesn't support the 5.8 series. We've raised a Priority Feature Request (PFR) with AWS to have this functionality added for at least three months. This would give us enough time to upgrade our database to the 8.0 version without any issues."
"AWS should reduce its cost to become more affordable for small-scale organizations."
"Faster API response times and an improved console experience would be better. Enhanced performance across APIs and the console would streamline our workflows."
"Amazon AWS could improve by being more secure and adding more features."
"In some scenarios, Azure will support hybrid cloud better while AWS offers direct connection."
"It should be easier to monitor the performance and generate analytic information so that we can determine how to provide better support for our clients."
"The solution could be smoother than it is."
"It would be beneficial if Lightsail allowed easier upgrade and change processes, similar to EC2 instances, without needing to fully back up and reinstall configurations."
"To improve, I feel the disk management is too basic. I can't easily partition the disk for the operating system. I have to follow the main configuration that is already set up in the template. To partition the disk, I would need to deploy the operating system first and then make changes, but it's not an ideal method. I would recommend improving the disk management."
"Currently, there is limited support available while installing or configuring it, and resources are primarily available through community-contributed articles."
"The main area for improvement in Lightsail is the difficulty in scaling down resources."
"Backward compatibility and the flexibility to choose software versions while installing would be improvements."
"I don't see this solution as enterprise-ready, for bigger companies like banks."
"Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are happy with the pricing."
"With Amazon AWS, you pay as you go."
"It's a pay-per-use model."
"As a startup business, it's very well priced, but if a number of transactions go up, clients have voiced that they are in a situation and feel a type of pressure and desire to move out of AWS."
"Its pricing can be simplified a little bit more. Even though they have been reducing it, I still believe they can do better as compared to GCP, Google Cloud."
"The licensing cost varies with the project involved."
"It is much more expensive than any other cloud provider."
"It's expensive. It costs you an arm and a leg."
"Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month."
"It's very cheap."
"The prices are better than EC2 machines, for instance, because they are simplified management, but it works well, and I am able to run everything that I need on it."
"The services that it provides are good for the price."
"A few months ago, Lightsail's pricing increased, likely due to the addition of the new VPC feature."
"Amazon Lightsail is a bit cheaper than Amazon EC2."
"The affordability of starting at five dollars makes it an attractive option for startups and medium-sized companies, aligning with budget considerations while offering essential cloud services."
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Comparison Review

it_user8586 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 14, 2013
Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison
Amazon Web Services, Rackspace OpenStack, Microsoft Windows Azure and Google are the major cloud hosting and storage service providers. Athough Amazon is top of them and is oldest in cloud market, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google are giving tough competition to each other and to Amazon also for…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS?
How is SAP Cloud Platform different than Amazon AWS? Amazon AWS offers options both in terms of upgrading and expanding capabilities as well as acquiring greater storage space. These upgrades can ...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
What do you like most about Amazon Lightsail?
In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Lightsail?
Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month. This cost may increase with additional features like a static IP.
What needs improvement with Amazon Lightsail?
The main area for improvement in Lightsail is the difficulty in scaling down resources. While it is easy to scale up, scaling down is not straightforward and involves additional complexities.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Web Services, AWS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pinterest, General Electric, Pfizer, Netflix, and Nasdaq.
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon AWS vs. Amazon Lightsail and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.