Amazon Lightsail vs. cPanel

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Lightsail
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Amazon 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
cPanel
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
cPanel headquartered in Houston provides website hosting providers with workload and server automation, as well as a management console for creating and launching websites, managing email and web files, and other administrative tasks.
$15.99
per month
Pricing
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Editions & Modules
512 MB Linux
$3.50
per month
1 GB Linux
$5.00
per month
2 GB Linux
$10.00
per month
cPanel Solo
$15.99
per month for 1 account
Admin
$24.99
per month up to 5 accounts
Pro
$35.99
per month up to 30 accounts
Premier (on cloud)
$53.99
per month up to 100 accounts
Premier (on metal)
$53.99
per month up to 100 accounts
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Features
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Lightsail
8.8
6 Ratings
7% above category average
cPanel
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime10.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling5.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.34 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.95 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support10.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls10.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.5 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.0 out of 10
VMware vCenter
VMware vCenter
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon LightsailcPanel
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.2
(14 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(9 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon LightsailcPanel
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.
Read full review
cPanel
I personally use it for any website hosting I do for me and others. There are a few others but I have stuck with the old tried and true and it always works for me and I know how to get around it so it has become a breeze for me. For those who are extremely new to websites and hosting or to those with very little technical know how cPanel could be very overwhelming and they might want to do like a managed WordPress hosting where they don't really have to see or deal with cPanel. I also probably wouldn't use it for straight email hosting. If you have thousands of cPanel accounts it may get very expensive and that could be a factor.
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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
Read full review
cPanel
  • The dashboard is very intuitive. Even beginners can figure out how to do things without very much help.
  • The online community is very helpful and the online documentation makes administering any tasks a lot easier.
  • User creation and administration for FTP access is also very simple.
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
Read full review
cPanel
  • The costs can be a limiting factor for some businesses if you are not using a web hosting company that uses it. I have been experimenting with Cloud hosting, which can be very daunting for the novice. There is an option to install it on the cloud but it is expensive.
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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.
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cPanel
Although it can be a little bit bloated with a lot of options and configurations, it's very straightforward to use and maintain. So it's a great option even if you don't have large experience in hosting configuration. The WHM tool is more suited to heavy users since it requires more expertise, so it has a steep learning curve to better understand how to use it.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
cPanel
The support comes in the form of an extensive library of how to articles and community input. For most situations this will give you plenty of information and resources to trouble shoot. Live support really then would need to default to the hosting provider who provides the cPanel for your use.
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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.
Read full review
cPanel
The direct server management tool access provided by cPanel hosting accounts is far superior to any shared or "standard" web site hosting packaged offered by any of the numerous web host providers I have used and or evaluated over the 20+ years of my experience working in the internet industry.
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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
Read full review
cPanel
  • cPanel makes back end server administration easy. This saves time and overall effort.
  • cPanel is readily available with most hosting packages. It integrates with both Apache and Nginx.
  • cPanel allows you to perform some of the same functions as WHM, but with an easier interface.
Read full review
ScreenShots