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Amazon Lightsail vs. Bluehost vs. CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)

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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

    Bluehost

    Score5.9 out of 10
    N/ABluehost, headquartered in Orem, Utah, offers website hosting. Bluehost also offers managed WordPress hosting, with optional SEO and marketing tools for WordPress plans.

    $19.95

    per month for 36 month term

    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)

    Score6.3 out of 10
    N/ACenturyLink Public Cloud was a set of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, DBaaS and cloud management tools. Later rebranded to Lumen, Lumen recommends the service's former customers migrate to Lumen Cloud Connect.N/A
    Pricing
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    512 MB Linux
    $3.50
    per month
    1 GB Linux
    $5.00
    per month
    2 GB Linux
    $10.00
    per month
    Shared WordPress Hosting
    $3.95-$16.99
    per month
    Shared Web Hosting
    $3.95-$26.99
    per month for 36 month term
    eCommerce - WooCommerce Hosting
    $15.95-$49.95
    per month, 1 month to 36 month terms available
    Managed WordPress (beta)
    $19.95
    per month for 36 month term
    VPS Hosting
    $19.99 - $119.99
    per month
    Blue Sky Live WordPress Support
    $29.00-$149.00
    per month
    Dedicated Hosting
    $79.99-$209.99
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    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
    Community Pulse
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Considered Multiple Products
    Amazon AWS
    No answer on this topic
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    67%
    Would buy again
    4 Answers
    63%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    80%
    Delivers good value for the price
    4 Answers
    75%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    83%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    63%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    4 Answers
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    75%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon Lightsail and Bluehost and CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Feature
    Amazon Lightsail
    8.8
    6 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Bluehost
    -
    Ratings
    CenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    -
    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
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    AccuWebHosting.Com
    Score9.9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    4.9
    (19 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    4.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon LightsailBluehostCenturyLink Public Cloud (discontinued)
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    Bluehost is a decent all-around choice for web hosting with professional web development and domain management features that are particularly ideal for WordPress websites and blogs. They have a good reputation within the industry as a company that invests heavily in new technology and platform innovation. Bluehost has made a lot of improvements to customize their back-end administration (AMP & control panel) by working to improve the usability and design of the browser interface. Bluehost is primarily focused on customers who use WordPress and we would recommend either their hybrid cloud or managed WordPress platform, which provides everything that you need to build and maintain a popular website. All in all, Bluehost is a well-established brand that continually improves its hosting products, regularly upgrades their data center hardware, and is generally considered a leader in the development of new cloud hosting platform services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    I believe for small to mid business application hosting Centurylink provides an adequate service. When moving to larger scale business enviornments I believe the limitations, slowness is going to become a problem
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • Customer service/tech support is simply top-notch. Being able to pick up the phone, get help, and not get charged for it is rare in the tech-support world.
    • Their Dashboard/C-panel has a wide selection of popular tools and options to make website design and all that goes with it very easy. Lots of choices; they are more than a simple hosting service.
    • Keeping their tools up-to-date. I never have to worry about upgrades or having the latest features; it just happens automatically!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Offloading the requirements for hosting apps in house - cost savings
    • Access ability - users could access documents and programs from anywhere
    • Collaborative work ability - multiple users could work within the same enviornment
    Incentivized
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • Setting up wasn't difficult but I think for some having tutorial videos would have been better than screenshots.
    • Provide more than one free domain on the Plus plan.
    • Offer site migration - not an option I saw when I signed up.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Perhaps ease of use - it's not convoluted but a little more streamlined of an interface would be great
    • Make your presence more known - in a world of heavily advertised cloud options CenturyLink is not at the top of the pile and I think it may be due to a lack of awareness in the business community. Advertise!
    • Streamline functionality - interface can be a little slow at times.
    Incentivized
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    I use Wordpress for my website on Bluehost, so I already know how it works and happy with it. I gave it this rating as I love the fact that If you do plan on creating multiple websites on Bluehost you'll be able to create specific login access for each website sites making it less likely to enter into the wrong website accounts. Which makes it even easier to manage client websites if you plan to create and host websites on behalf of your clients.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    They are quick, easily reached, and can usually solve problems on the first try. However I noticed I had to go to customer support more often than with other providers, whether that was things breaking more often or if their customer support couldn't fix things on the first try. But in most scenarios, they are fine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    Bluehost did not stack up against HostGator; in fact, HostGator was where we ended up migrating after we realized Bluehost was not for us. Bluehost is not geared toward businesses, especially ones like ours that have a very customized site. HostGator allowed us the customization that we needed, and their prices were terrific.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    I did not select the application hosting environment - I was a user. That being said I do not have much of a voice in the difference between hosted services that I have experienced.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Amazon AWS
    No answers on this topic
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    The website is slow. The speed is not reliable. Sometimes, sites would go down without warning. You would have to get a VPS to get consistent speed. If you have small website as a hobby, then Bluehost will be sufficient. Otherwise, I recommend looking for something more fast. Storage is good, but speed is lacking
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Newfold Digital (Endurance + Web.com)
    • It allowed me to get my website up and running and sell services.
    • It is fairly low cost, so it was easy to recoup my investment.
    • Having to pay for a whole year upfront made it take a little longer to get the return on my investment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    ScreenShots