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Amazon Lightsail vs. Azure Virtual Machines vs. HostGator

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon Lightsail

    Score9.6 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) designed to present an easy-to-use cloud platform that offers everything needed to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan.

    $3.50

    per month

    Azure Virtual Machines

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AVirtual Machines (VMs) are available on Microsoft Azure, providing what is built as a low-cost, per-second compute service, available via Windows or Linux.

    $0

    Per Hour

    HostGator

    Score6 out of 10
    N/AHostGator, from Newfold Digital (formerly Endurance), is a web hosting service with WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting capabilities.

    $2.75

    per month

    Pricing
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Editions & Modules
    512 MB Linux
    $3.50
    per month
    1 GB Linux
    $5.00
    per month
    2 GB Linux
    $10.00
    per month
    3 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
    $0.0038
    Per Hour
    Spot - General Purpose - Av2
    $0.005
    Per Hour
    1 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
    $0.0059
    Per Hour
    Pay as You Go - Burstable VMs - B1S
    $0.0075
    Per Hour
    Spot - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
    $0.0104
    Per Hour
    Spot - General Purpose - Dv3
    $0.0125
    Per Hour
    Spot - Memory Optimized - Ev3
    $0.016
    Per Hour
    3 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
    $0.0307
    Per Hour
    3 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
    $0.0369
    Per Hour
    3 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
    $0.0481
    Per Hour
    1 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
    $0.05
    Per Hour
    1 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
    $0.0548
    Per Hour
    1 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
    $0.0753
    Per Hour
    Pay as You Go - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
    $0.0846
    Per Hour
    Pay as You Go - General Purpose - Dv3
    $0.096
    Per Hour
    Pay as You Go - Memory Optimized - Ev3
    $0.126
    Per Hour
    Hatchling
    $2.75
    per month
    Baby
    $3.50
    per month
    Business
    $5.25
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon Lightsail and Azure Virtual Machines and HostGator
    Feature
    Amazon Lightsail
    8.8
    6 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Azure Virtual Machines
    -
    Ratings
    HostGator
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime10.06 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling5.05 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing9.34 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates8.06 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.06 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.95 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support10.06 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls10.06 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation10.05 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Amazon Lightsail and Azure Virtual Machines and HostGator
    Feature
    Amazon Lightsail
    -
    Ratings
    Azure Virtual Machines
    7.6
    25 Ratings
    6% below category average
    HostGator
    -
    Ratings
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings9.025 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings4.523 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings6.521 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    9.4
    (25 ratings)
    6.9
    (19 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.8
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon LightsailAzure Virtual MachinesHostGator
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    We utilized Amazon Lightsail to get a web application proof of concept up and running. It's easy to set up, requires minimal configuration, and lets us to concentrate on the coding. It's designed to help you get started fast and easily, but it's not designed for corporate applications or workloads.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    If you want to host a dedicated Windows server on the cloud, and especially if you want to integrate it with your on premises Active Directory, Azure Virtual Machines should be your first choice. Obviously running Linux on Azure works very well too, but given Azure's pricing is not the cheapest, there are other providers out there that have a better cost-benefit ratio for Linux. That said, hosting Windows on Azure can be affordable (especially when compared to other providers) if you plan your licensing, topology, and application architecture correctly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    HostGator for email, domain and website hosting--delightful, 100% satisfied! Have always had ample capacity for company email needs, features work well. I have used it off and on for several organizations since 2011. HostGator website building is fairly straightforward, although I wouldn't recommend it for first-time web designing. The pluses on the HostGator website builder: great-looking themes, adequate webpage capacity, really cool scrolling capabilities, which trends well now. Easier than building a WordPress website from scratch, which can also be done for free in HostGator. I'd say it's limited compared to feature-rich WP, but it designs as nicely as Wix.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • Its provide pre configured Apps and operating system
    • Very easy to use interface and the cost is also very low
    • Integration with other AWS services like route53, S3 etc
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • When demand is high, we scale the service out, eg During a Football Match.
    • When a football match is over and the throughput of data from OPTA drops we save by the service scaling back in.
    • Our App Service Plans along with the Clean C# code are lightening fast giving a good customer experience.
    • When producing the TV Guide information and a program overruns its scheduled time, a client can instantly be updated to the new programming schedule as our change is instant and its in the right place for all the clients to download and adjust their television guides appropriately to send out to the public giving a 24x7 uptime service that is precise and accurate and resilient to outages due to failover zones around the world.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • The pricing is a big feature for this hosting company
    • Every three years when the hosting contract is coming to an end, they offer a reduced fee to upgrade your server plan, which is more cost effective than renewing at the regular rate for whatever plan you're currently using.
    • The customer service workers are professional and friendly.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • slow
    • complex integration to AWS Cloudwatch - complex setup required
    • No IPv6, a big downside
    • less value compared with Linode or Digital Ocean
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Pricing can be a concern if you are truly agnostic to which cloud you are building your particular solution in.
    • The UI, as is the case with any cloud provider, is crowded.
    • As with any cloud provider, it can be difficult to tune in exactly the right amount of servers for your needs...you might find yourself under/overprovisioning.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • Support could be better, it takes a long time to connect with somebody
    • You need to pay extra for a backup you can rely on
    • SiteLock is sold separately, but did not help when we were hacked
    • Site seems to slow down from time to time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    definitely it will be renewed. considering the ROI and uptime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    Because we have in house technical support to compensate the lack of quality HostGator tech support, and because the price continues to be affordable the business is likely to continue using HostGator. They provide what the business needs and we have in house support to maintain it.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    My overall experience with Amazon Lightsail is very good, and the online community of Lightsail users is very large and its helps to resolve any kind of issue i faced on my server. I also like the integration of other AWS services with Amazon Lightsail like we can export our Lightsail instance into ec2 server using snapshots.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No VM console, weak management interface, changing CPU/memory is not straightforward. On the positive side, basic RDP functionality is good to have. As long as things are working, the ability to host Windows VMs is appreciated.
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I give the overall support for Azure Virtual Machines a 7 because I think while the overall support do a great job there are still areas that it could improve on such as efficiency and speed. So while I only give it a 7 and it has some issues it is still better than the overall support at Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    While you will get support from HostGator, it seems to be a different level from 8-10 years ago. It may take 15-20 minutes to get someone on chat, and unless you follow up, I've found followup email support to take a couple of days. If you stick with it, though, you will get support, and I've never had a problem they couldn't help with.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon Lightsail is a great platform. Before we started using it, we were using AWS EC2 instances as our primary servers after being dissatisfied with other providers. After Amazon Lightsail's introduction, we were able to reduce our operating costs, improve our quality assurance tasks, and provide much more efficient and better apps with our microservices architecture.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure Virtual Machines offer unparalleled flexibility in provisioning, managing and upgrading the VM instances, both manually and programmatically. AVM offer very granular billing options and enables high costs optimisations (while still being costly). The other competitors I mentioned are very good at offering dead-cheap VMs. But if you need anything beyond that, especially for big computing, you need Azure Virtual Machines.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    I prefer HostGator over GoDaddy. HostGator does have better and more reliable customer support, and the user interface and user experience are overall much more friendly and easier to use. GoDaddy does have downtime associated with their hosting in my experience, but I have not experienced that with HostGator.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • Hosting a production application on Lightsail will guarantee you a loss
    • Saved lots of time for our prototyping
    • Other VPS providers are better
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It's so easy to spin up new instances, that it becomes also to easy to have to many of them to manage. Many teams end up with a couple of hundreds of VMs after a short while, making the whole thing very hard to maneuver
    • Azure VMs are the next step for us to rely on Onprem servers, and leaving the management of the infrastructure to the professionals
    • The ease of use, is also important when our main focus is to deliver new applications and integrations fast, and not having to worry about infrastructure. We sell bottles, not CPUs
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • Usage of resale options easily quadrupled the money I was spending on HostGator
    • Trust in the host has to be earned, and HostGator has not retained that for me -- it will be a while before I feel confident in their uptime again
    • Overall, HG has been a positive impact on my business as a web developer
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots