Amazon Lightsail vs Heroku comparison

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Amazon Lightsail

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Heroku and Amazon Lightsail compete in the cloud hosting market. Amazon Lightsail has the upper hand due to its extensive features and superior value for money.

Features: Heroku is known for its user-friendly interface, automated deployments, and a robust set of add-ons that appeal to developers looking for ease of use. Amazon Lightsail offers virtual servers, storage, and databases, providing a comprehensive package attractive for its versatility and integration with other AWS services.

Room for Improvement: Heroku could enhance its scalability options and provide more competitive pricing for larger deployments. It could also offer a wider array of support options. Amazon Lightsail might improve its ease of use compared to more straightforward services and bolster its customer support response times. It could also expand its feature set for small-scale developers.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Heroku simplifies deployment with its platform-as-a-service model, offering reliable support. Amazon Lightsail provides intuitive deployments using predefined configurations, benefitting from integrated AWS support and a variety of services for comprehensive customer assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Heroku features a transparent pricing model, attractive for predictable costs, but scaling can impact ROI. Amazon Lightsail provides cost-effective solutions, starting as low as $5, which are scalable and offer better long-term ROI, especially suitable for projects anticipating growth.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Lightsail vs. Heroku Report (Updated: June 2025).

Amazon Lightsail vs. Heroku

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Helped 856,873 peers since 2012

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 Lightsail

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Heroku

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Heroku is 3.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Vitor Gabriel Reis Lux Barboza

IT Specialist Architecture at Nidec Global Appliance

Provides preconfigured templates for common setups and allows for easy configuration of firewall settings directly from the console

There were templates for Ubuntu, for instance, that I used. I used it if I remember, going to 20.04, I guess. It was ready, and I just used the template and it worked well. There is a template for Windows Server, but I didn't test them. Also, the configurations over the firewall in the console work very good for the purpose that we need to isolate it from the internet but allow the connection from specific IP addresses in specific ports. So the filtering in the Lightsail Firewall works good. And I am able to isolate the virtual machine well from the internet in order to avoid DDoS attacks and stuff like that.

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Cristian-Molina

Senior Developer at Go Coeupas

Has a quick development cycle and continuous integration

The initial setup is straightforward. Heroku integrates well. You only have to push the code, and it automatically deploys the new version. Whether you have permission depends on the application. Currently, I have one application that I deploy myself. I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is pretty easy."

"We use Amazon Lightsail for hosting security components in-house and AI modules."

"The most valuable features are the usability and customer service."

"The instances optimized for WordPress are very lightweight and straightforward in configuration."

"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."

"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."

"In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed."

"One of the product's most valuable features is its fixed pricing, which makes it ideal for small projects and websites that do not require scaling."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"What I found most valuable about this solution is that it's easy to use and integrate with GitHub actions."

"It's easy to push a change and to deploy new things."

"It is easy to deploy applications, and we don't need to bother about software updates on the server. We don't need to bother about machines, servers, and hardware. We only need to care about the system and functionality that we need or want to develop. They take care of everything else. It provides high availability. It is a pretty good solution that provides everything that we need. It has everything that we need to run our applications. We have many different applications, and we generate three million bills for a company in Brazil. We see more than a billion requests per day in another application. Everything works just fine, and it is very good."

"The platform is very Node.js-friendly, which is something that is important to us."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the auto maintenance of databases."

"Valuable for us was the fast deployment. This means the time to market is improved without pain for developers."

"We use Heroku to run generic data. We also use it for our customer development environment. It helps us to build and test websites."

"The most valuable feature of Heroku is the continuous integration and applications it provides."

More Heroku pros

Cons

"Currently, there is limited support available while installing or configuring it, and resources are primarily available through community-contributed articles."

"Backward compatibility and the flexibility to choose software versions while installing would be improvements."

"The solution could be smoother than it is."

"When you need to add some custom rules to Amazon Lightsail, the auto scaling feature is a bit difficult."

"I don't see this solution as enterprise-ready, for bigger companies like banks."

"The main area for improvement in Lightsail is the difficulty in scaling down resources."

"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."

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"We don't find the pipelines intuitive. The user experience could be better. Having to set up multiple apps, then a pipeline, seems like an overkill on the amount of work to do."

"The tool's configuration is complex."

"Their support is good, but they can improve their response time."

"The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly."

"They could flesh out some of their analytics a little more."

"We would like to be notified when something goes wrong in the process. When something is not working, we should get an alert."

"We have to do daily restarts of some processes, which is annoying, and the support for custom CI could be better."

"I improved the application performance by monitoring and adjusting the cleaner configuration to help set better lightweight limits on containers that run the app instances."

More Heroku cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month."

"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."

"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."

"It's very cheap."

"The services that it provides are good for the price."

"The price of Heroku could be less expensive."

"Its price is very good."

"The tool is free."

"There is a standard fee for a processing unit, they call them "dynos," and then you pay for add-ons."

"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

What do you like most about Heroku?

I like the tool's scalability, CLI, and dashboards.

What needs improvement with Heroku?

I don't like that the web server crashes every day, every 24 hours. The pricing could be improved because scaling the database becomes costly. The Docker features are not great. You cannot use any ...

What is your primary use case for Heroku?

We use the solution for web applications and web APIs.

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Product Reports

PaaS Clouds

Download Amazon Lightsail product report

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Overview

Lightsail is ideal for simpler workloads, quick deployments, and getting started on AWS. It’s designed to help you start small, and then scale as you grow.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Established in 2007, Heroku is a cloud application platform providing a streamlined, efficient place for web app developers to create and deploy their applications. Heroku is designed to maximize developer productivity. With the entire web application development process available on the Herokucloud, creating and rolling out web apps has been made more efficient, convenient, and cost-effective than ever before.

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Facebook, UrbanDictionary, Code for America, Mailchimp, Rapportive, GitHub, TED, and Lyft.

Amazon Lightsail vs. Heroku