Amazon Lightsail vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Red Hat are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.8, while Red Hat is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.0% mindshare in PSP, compared to Red Hat’s 12.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 12 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,052 Views
1,052 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift

Read 62 Red Hat OpenShift reviews

11,087 Views
7,650 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

Red Hat OpenShift

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Red Hat OpenShift and Amazon Lightsail compete in the cloud computing and application deployment category. Red Hat OpenShift appears to have the upper hand in terms of feature richness and scalability, making it more suitable for large-scale deployments compared to the cost-effective and user-friendly Amazon Lightsail.

Features: Red Hat OpenShift offers features like fast CI/CD, strong security, and robust pod solutions, beneficial for large-scale deployments. Its integration with Docker and Kubernetes simplifies deployments. Advanced security features and ImageStream are also advantages. Amazon Lightsail is focused on simplicity and cost-effectiveness, with pre-configured instances and ease of use appealing to less tech-savvy users. It supports applications like WordPress with minimal setup.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat OpenShift could improve its documentation and accessibility of the security model, and enhance autoscaling capabilities. More intuitive templates and better support for multi-cloud integrations are needed. Amazon Lightsail could enhance disk management, auto-scaling, and network features. Improvements in documentation and support will improve user onboarding and integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat OpenShift provides flexibility with on-premises, private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments, though it requires skilled personnel. Its technical support is varied, with some users finding it lacking. Amazon Lightsail is simpler and easier to deploy in public cloud settings, though it might not offer comprehensive technical support for complex projects.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat OpenShift has a higher price point justified by extensive features. It offers bundled pricing and support though some find it expensive compared to open-source Kubernetes solutions with ROI linked to operational efficiencies. Amazon Lightsail is praised for cost-effectiveness and predictable pricing, attracting startups and small businesses, with favorable ROI for straightforward applications but limited feature set compared to OpenShift for demanding environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Lightsail vs. Red Hat OpenShift Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Red Hat OpenShift

July 2025

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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

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Red Hat OpenShift

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Virtualization Software (10th), Container Management (12th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (6th), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Red Hat OpenShift is 12.0%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Atul Chauhan

DevOps engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

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.

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Pratul Shukla

Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Adopting a flexible and efficient approach with noticeable improvements in operational costs and continued challenges in job management

Currently, one of the biggest challenges we face is with services and jobs. For spawning batches, although it has crons, it is not easy to integrate with enterprise systems such as Autosys. The entire company uses Autosys, but we are not able to integrate it effectively. We need intermediate servers to run OC utility commands and initiate the cron job. We have to do a lot of modifications to ensure our batches work properly. With physical or virtual servers, even in AWS, we are able to write and manage multiple jobs. Managing batches in Red Hat OpenShift has been a significant challenge. Integrating third parties is a challenge with Red Hat OpenShift. For example, with Elasticsearch, onboarding itself was difficult, running file beats and dealing with routing issues. It is not straightforward, especially since we have some components in AWS as. AWS has many capabilities that come out of the box and are easier to work with compared to Red Hat OpenShift. Red Hat OpenShift's biggest disadvantage is they do not provide any private cloud setup where we can host on our site using their services. The main reason we went with Red Hat OpenShift was because it is a private cloud, and we have regulatory requirements that prevent us from using public cloud.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"The solution provides a lot of flexibility to the application team for running their applications in the container platform, without needing to monitor the entire infrastructure all the time. It automatically scales and automatically self-heals. There is also a mechanism to alert the team in case it is over-committing or overutilizing the application."

"I love to automate everything and OpenShift was been born for that. It takes care of the network layer itself and I don't need to dive into it; I can work on a top level. Our project has numerous services designed to run in Docker containers, and we have run almost all pieces in OpenShift."

"I am impressed with the product's security features."

"In terms of implementation, OpenShift is very user-friendly, which is an advantage. We are using it along with GitLab for implementing CI/CD pipelines. That's a feature that other products also have, but in OpenShift, we find it good."

"Self-provisioning support saves a lot of time and unnecessary work from the system administrator who can use this time to run and monitor the infrastructure. For the developer, this means less time waiting for the provisioning and excellent flexibility for development, testing, and production. Also, in such systems it is easy for developers to monitor applications even after deployment."

"What I like best about OpenShift is that it can reduce some of the costs of having multiple applications because you can just move them into small container applications. For example, applications don't need to run for twenty days, only to be used up by Monday. Through OpenShift, you can move some of the small applications into any cloud. I also find the design of OpenShift good."

"The most valuable feature is the auto scalers for all microservices. The feature allows us to place request limits and it is much cheaper than AWS."

"The solution is easy to scale."

More Red Hat OpenShift pros

Cons

"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."

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

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

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

"The product's network features need enhancement."

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

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"Its virtual upgrades are time-consuming."

"Documentation and technical support could be improved. The product is good, but when we raise a case with support—say we are having an image issue—the support is not really up to the mark. It is difficult to get support... When we raise a case, their support people will hesitate to get on a call or a screen-sharing session. That is a major drawback when it comes to OpenShift."

"Some of the storage services and integrations with third-party tools should be made possible."

"The product’s integration with Windows containers and other third-party products needs improvement."

"Needs work on volume handling (although this is already better with GlusterFS). Security (SSSD) would also be an improvement."

"Autoscaling is a very unique feature, but it could be useful to have more options based on traffic statistics, for example, via Prometheus. So, there should be more ready solutions to autoscale based on specific applications."

"The whole area around the hybrid cloud could be improved. I would like to deploy a Red Hat OpenShift cluster on-premise and on the cloud, then have Red Hat do the entire hybrid cloud management."

"Credential not hidden, so people on the same group can view it."

More Red Hat OpenShift cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

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

"It's very cheap."

"The product has reasonable pricing."

"It's important to start small because the solution is scalable. We can build our cluster and look at the bundle option, not the external subscriptions. Talking to the people at Red Hat can save us money."

"The pricing is standard; the solution isn't particularly expensive or affordable."

"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."

"This solution is fairly expensive but comes at an average cost compared to other solutions in the market."

"The pricing for OpenShift includes support and licensing, which costs approximately $400."

"The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range."

"The licensing cost for OpenShift is expensive when compared to other products. RedHat also charges you additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees."

More Red Hat OpenShift pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

29%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

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.

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?

Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four. The networking layer is basically the hacker's target to break the network, s...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

See all answers

What do you like most about OpenShift?

OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 33% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 30% of the time

Heroku vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 8% of the time

AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 6% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 8% of the time

Google Cloud vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 6% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

July 2025

Download Amazon Lightsail product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift

August 2025

Download Red Hat OpenShift product report

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)

Red Hat OpenShift offers a robust, scalable platform with strong security and automation, suitable for container orchestration, application deployment, and microservices architecture.

Designed to modernize applications by transitioning from legacy systems to cloud-native environments, Red Hat OpenShift provides powerful CI/CD integration and Kubernetes compatibility. Its security features, multi-cloud support, and source-to-image functionality enhance deployment flexibility. While the GUI offers user-friendly navigation, users benefit from its cloud-agnostic nature and efficient lifecycle management. However, improvements are needed in documentation, configuration complexity, and integration with third-party platforms. Pricing and high resource demands can also be challenging for wider adoption.

What are the key features of Red Hat OpenShift?

Security: Comprehensive security features ensure safe deployments and operations.
Scalability: Auto-scaling and monitoring capabilities cater to high-demand environments.
CI/CD Integration: Seamless integration for efficient continuous deployment processes.
Cloud Compatibility: Supports multi-cloud and on-premise solutions with ease.
GUI: Simplifies platform management and enhances usability.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined operations reduce time and resource investments.
Enhanced Flexibility: Adapt quickly to changing demands and environments.
Quick Deployment: Fast application deployment supports agile project timelines.
Robust Support: Access to dependable customer support services.

Red Hat OpenShift is strategically implemented for diverse industries focusing on container orchestration and application modernization. Organizations leverage it for migrating applications to cloud-native environments and managing CI/CD pipelines. Its functionality facilitates efficient resource management and microservices architecture adoption, supporting enterprise-level DevOps practices. Users employ it across cloud and on-premises platforms to drive performance improvements.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Red Hat OpenShift

July 2025

Free Report: Amazon Lightsail vs. Red Hat OpenShift

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