Amazon Lightsail vs Netlify Platform comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Netlify are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Netlify users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 13 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,089 Views
1,089 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Netlify Platform

Read 6 Netlify Platform reviews

100% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

Netlify Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 7, 2026

Amazon Lightsail and Netlify Platform compete in the cloud hosting market, with Netlify having an edge in feature sets suitable for modern workflows, while Amazon Lightsail appeals more to budget-conscious businesses seeking stable pricing and robust support.

Features: Amazon Lightsail is valued for its simplicity, predefined plans, and fast resource provisioning, making it ideal for those requiring straightforward virtual machines and databases. Netlify Platform shines with sophisticated automation, seamless CI/CD integrations, and a modern JAMstack workflow, targeting developers interested in advanced web ecosystems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon Lightsail allows for a straightforward, fast deployment model with readily available support channels, fitting for users seeking familiar IaaS environments. Netlify Platform supports automated deployment and instant rollback features along with robust online documentation, suiting developers focused on continuous deployment efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon Lightsail offers cost-effective, predictable monthly pricing, ideal for businesses with budget constraints, enhancing ROI through cost efficiency. Netlify Platform, despite potentially higher costs, delivers valuable features for a developer-driven approach, promising long-term value and higher ROI for businesses leveraging modern web practices.

To learn more, read our detailed PaaS Clouds Report (Updated: January 2026).

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PaaS Clouds

January 2026

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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

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

PaaS Clouds (7th)

Netlify Platform

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

4.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

VictorAugusto De Souza E Silva

Cloud Engineer at Leek Solucoes

Has simplified website migration and reduced hosting costs significantly

Amazon Lightsail should have some kind of scale service. To be more clear, if I need to scale up my instance or VPS, I need to create a snapshot and create a new instance from this snapshot with more resources, such as CPU, RAM, or disk. It would be beneficial to have a welcome instance where we can just set the instance, go there to edit and select a greater instance from large to x-large or 2x-large. I do not see the need to scale down, but it would be good too. When we are on an x-large for testing purposes and need to do a rollback to a large one, we need to scale down. We do not have this capability on Amazon Lightsail.

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Kurmathi Reddy

Software Developer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Automated deployments have simplified portfolio updates and have reduced manual pipeline work

For the improvements in Netlify Platform, I think it should focus on better marketing because competitors like Vercel and others are present in the market. While Netlify Platform looks clean, neat, and enhanced, it should do better marketing, as it is actually recommended by ChatGPT for small-sized projects. I believe it should also be suggested for larger projects and promoted more so that Netlify Platform is used by multiple people; it should be the go-to cloud environment. I think the technical side of Netlify Platform can improve, especially in the documentation. They can add more information about new frameworks as they come into the platform or market. They should maintain a troubleshooting page on Netlify Platform docs that comprehensively shows all the steps. Adding more user-friendly animations or navigation would make the platform easier. Moreover, with the documentation, it currently shows all the tabs at one place, and the customer should understand what each use is without having to click into it. They should support more old frameworks as well, to increase the range of utilizations since mostly old frameworks are still in the market, prompting more users to migrate to Netlify Platform.

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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

"Amazon Lightsail is a virtual instance that is a service of Amazon AWS, designed to store data securely and provide applications through the cloud at an affordable cost to the SME sector."

"Amazon Lightsail is easy to use and very cost-effective compared to other services such as Azure and Google."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The intuitive management console of Amazon Lightsail is very good because it is simple; with just a few clicks, I can set a blog online, a WordPress blog online, a new e-commerce online, or just a new application with NodeJS."

"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

"My main reason for preference over competitors like GitHub Pages and Vercel is its seamless integration with GitHub, where I can deploy directly from my development IDE using CLI commands, making it more efficient without having to manually link things."

"Netlify Platform was very feasible and we did not have to pay a very large sum of money to host our services."

"Netlify Platform has positively impacted my organization because the entire CI/CD pipeline in place becomes very easy to manage using Netlify."

"Netlify Platform has positively impacted my organization and personal projects by making it easy for me to deploy my personal portfolio website without doing all the DevOps and CI/CD pipeline myself."

"The best thing Netlify Platform has done for me is that it gives me velocity, taking away all the burden and time-consuming processes so I can move fast."

Cons

"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."

"The disadvantage I see is data storage; if any data crash occurs in the cloud server, that will lead to significant losses for the customer."

"Amazon Lightsail should have some kind of scale service. To be more clear, if I need to scale up my instance or VPS, I need to create a snapshot and create a new instance from this snapshot with more resources, such as CPU, RAM, or disk."

"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."

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

"Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four."

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"The pricing of Netlify Platform is acceptable for beginners but can become costly for intermediate users, as it can be high when CPU usage goes beyond a certain amount."

"I think the technical side of Netlify Platform can improve, especially in the documentation."

"Netlify Platform could be improved if they hosted their independent services apart from GitHub."

"I think Netlify Platform can be improved if it has the functionality to have a full back-end as well."

"While it also helps with backend deployment, it is not as scalable as AWS or Azure, and I would love to see and explore more features in the future around it."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"A few months ago, Lightsail's pricing increased, likely due to the addition of the new VPC feature."

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

"Amazon Lightsail is a bit cheaper than Amazon EC2."

"It's very cheap."

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

"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

University

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

30%

Government

21%

University

12%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	4

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Lightsail?

See all answers

What needs improvement with Netlify Platform?

Netlify Web Development Cloud does have limitations as it is not suitable for back-end heavy or long-running server applications, and its free tier imposes usage limits on bandwidth, build minutes,...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Netlify Platform?

My main use case for Netlify Web Development Cloud is deploying my applications, such as deploying my personal applications so that everyone can access my made application through a link. I use Net...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Netlify Platform?

My advice for others looking into using Netlify Web Development Cloud is to highly recommend it for beginners and front-end developers wanting to understand modern deployment and CI/CD workflows, t...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 28% of the time

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 24% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Render vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Google App Engine vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Cloud Rewind (formerly Appranix) vs Netlify Platform

Compared 100% of the time

More Netlify Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

January 2026

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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)

Netlify Platform is a modern cloud tool for building and deploying web applications, offering efficient workflows and integration with popular services.

Netlify Platform streamlines the deployment of web projects by automating builds and managing infrastructure seamlessly. It caters to developers looking to simplify complex tasks with ease, allowing for swift integrations and fostering a smooth development lifecycle. Users benefit from features that accelerate production timelines, support team collaboration, and enable hassle-free scaling.

What features enhance Netlify Platform?

Continuous Deployment: Automatically deploy updates from your code repository for seamless integration.
Integrated CDN: Deliver content quickly and efficiently with built-in content delivery networks.
Serverless Functions: Build dynamic web applications with ease using serverless functions supported out-of-the-box.
Real-time Preview: Collaborate better with instant previews that reflect changes in real-time.
Custom Domain Management: Manage and configure custom domains directly through the platform.

What benefits and ROI can be expected from Netlify Platform?

Cost Efficiency: Reduce infrastructure and operational costs significantly through effective automation.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlined processes free up developer time, enhancing productivity.
Scalability: Easily scale applications to meet growing demands without hassle.
Improved Collaboration: Foster better team collaboration with tools that support shared workflows and real-time feedback.

In e-commerce, Netlify Platform helps retailers integrate personalized features quickly, adapt to seasonal traffic spikes, and maintain high performance. For tech startups, the platform supports rapid iterations and developmental agility needed in competitive markets, making it an industry favorite.

Netlify

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Information Not Available

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