Amazon Lightsail

Amazon Lightsail

Score 8.4 out of 10
Amazon Lightsail

Overview

What is Amazon Lightsail?

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.
Read more

Recent Reviews

Read all reviews

Popular Features

View all 9 features
  • Pre-configured templates (5)
    8.7
    87%
  • Pre-defined machine images (5)
    8.5
    85%
  • Monitoring tools (5)
    8.1
    81%
  • Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime (5)
    7.9
    79%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
AP
Arpit Patel
Student
Stevens Institute of technology (Computer Software, 10,001+ employees)
Verified User
General Manager in Research & Development
Research Company, 1-10 employees

Video Reviews

Leaving a video review helps other professionals like you evaluate products. Be the first one in your network to record a review of Amazon Lightsail, and make your voice heard!

Record a review
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

512 MB Linux

$3.50

Cloud
per month

1 GB Linux

$5.00

Cloud
per month

2 GB Linux

$10.00

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting / Integration Services
Return to navigation

Product Demos

Learn more about Amazon Lightsail
01:43
Return to navigation

Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet

8.7Avg 8.3
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Amazon Lightsail?

Amazon Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) that supports a number of different use cases:

Simple web applications
Deploy a web application with pre-configured development stacks like LAMP, Nginx, MEAN, and Node.js.

Websites
Create and customize a blog, e-commerce, or personal website with Lightsail's pre-configured applications like WordPress, Magento, Plesk, and Joomla.

Business software
Run open source and commercial software, as Lightsail helps launch a line-of-business software, like file storage and sharing, backups, financial and accounting software.

Dev/test environments
Spin up a developer or test environment. Creating dev sandboxes and testing environments outside of production environments lets users test without the concern of breaking something.

Lightsail automatically configures networking, access, and security environments. Lightsail plans include a static IP address, DNS management, resource monitoring and alerting, remote access via SSH or RDP, and secure key management.

Amazon Lightsail Video

Amazon Lightsail Introduction

Amazon Lightsail Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Reviewers rate Operating system support and Automation highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of Amazon Lightsail are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

 (16)

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
Popular Filters
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 14, 2022

Lightsail a saver

AP
Arpit Patel
Student
Stevens Institute of technology (Computer Software, 10,001+ employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use Amazon Lightsail for most of my projects which are web based. The organization that I use to work for in the past uses it for the employee which makes the task easy for them and it boost up the process of development. It is very easy to setup with minimal configuration.
Pros and Cons
  • Predictable billing
  • Intuitive UI/UX
  • ease of use
  • Customer service tiers - have to pay more for better service
  • Usage not shown in obvious place
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Most Important Features
  • Easy to get started
  • Intuitive UI/UX
Amazon Lightsail Feature Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) (9)
98.88888888888889%
9.9
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
90%
9.0
Dynamic scaling
100%
10.0
Elastic load balancing
100%
10.0
Pre-configured templates
100%
10.0
Monitoring tools
100%
10.0
Pre-defined machine images
100%
10.0
Operating system support
100%
10.0
Security controls
100%
10.0
Automation
100%
10.0
Return on Investment
  • Saved money on trial period
  • Customer service was less helpful
  • Time Saving
Alternatives Considered
Amazon Lightsail is ideal for beginners looking for a low-cost VPS to try out new things. It's especially useful if you're at a hackathon and need a quick way to prototype a quick idea. I would never recommend Lightsail for any kind of production work. In terms of uptime, Lightsail has proved unreliable. Occasionally, the instance will simply crash or reboot at random. Without warning, Amazon will perform maintenance on your Lightsail instance. Lightsail's networking is likewise lacking, with no support for IPv6.
Other Software Used
March 08, 2022

Low Cost But High Stability for Small Loads

Verified User
General Manager in Research & Development
Research Company, 1-10 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
For standalone showcase and any other static web contents, we and the customers use AWS Lightsail as a low cost solution.The low cost, very stable , scalable services and easy managment service is the best option for small business and small web hosting application. With the bundled ec2 instance, no need to care the traffic cost and the segmented start-up , It gives the ability which customers can run applications without our support.
Pros and Cons
  • static web hosting & non public managments
  • low cost remote access
  • media distribution
  • more powerful or burst more instances
  • low cost container services
Likelihood to Recommend
We use AWS Lightsail on online showcases, it provides predictable cost and enough performance. With bundled data transfer and powerful internet, 2 instances per site provide a high capability on media distribution, with a very low cost than ec2. A short video is enough for customers to start their sites without help with full control, this offloads our support team.
Most Important Features
  • higher in-bundled data transfer and bundled disk
  • instances run stable
  • easy managment
Amazon Lightsail Feature Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) (9)
91.11111111111111%
9.1
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
100%
10.0
Dynamic scaling
80%
8.0
Elastic load balancing
90%
9.0
Pre-configured templates
90%
9.0
Monitoring tools
90%
9.0
Pre-defined machine images
90%
9.0
Operating system support
90%
9.0
Security controls
90%
9.0
Automation
100%
10.0
Return on Investment
  • more customer cases
  • lower bill
  • light load on support team
Other Software Used
February 28, 2022

Sailing easy on Lightsail - easy setup

Verified User
Former Employee in Other
Education Management Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We used Amazon Lightsail to get a proof of concept project up running for a web application. It is very simple to set up, minimal configuration, and allows us to focus on the code. It is meant for getting started quickly, with minimal hassle but not for enterprise applications and workloads.
Pros and Cons
  • Documentation
  • Pay as you go
  • Easy to set up
  • Lack of flexibility in terms of configuration
  • Customer service tiers - have to pay more for better service
  • Usage not shown in obvious place
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon Lightsail is perfect for starting up a small web application, but not for one with lots of traffic. It also offers a 3 month free trial currently for new users. It is easy to set up the server and does a lot of the management on behalf of the user.
Most Important Features
  • Easy to get started
  • Predictable billing
  • Intuitive UI/UX
Amazon Lightsail Feature Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) (9)
86.66666666666666%
8.7
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
90%
9.0
Dynamic scaling
90%
9.0
Elastic load balancing
90%
9.0
Pre-configured templates
80%
8.0
Monitoring tools
80%
8.0
Pre-defined machine images
80%
8.0
Operating system support
100%
10.0
Security controls
80%
8.0
Automation
90%
9.0
Return on Investment
  • Saved a lot of time on set up and configuration
  • Saved money on trial period
  • Customer service was less helpful
Alternatives Considered
I believe Lightsail has worse support than DigitalOcean and the pay more for better service model is not great as most customers are trying it for the first time. They are both very fast to set up and get started, but we went with AWS Lightsail because we were familiar with some of the offerings at AWS.
Other Software Used
September 14, 2021

Stay away from Lightsail

Verified User
C-Level Executive in Information Technology
Computer Software Company, 1-10 employees
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use a Amazon Lightsail as a simple VPS provider as an alternative to Linode or Digital Ocean. Our systems hosted on Lightsail include apache websites, NodeJS applications, Python Flask applications as well as databases. Amazon lightsail is actually preconfigured EC2 instances and we use Lightsail instead of EC2 for its simplicity. The services provided by Lightsail is actually just a VPS - however, you need some AWS knowledge to be able to set up system metrics monitoring.
Pros and Cons
  • simple
  • easy to use
  • slow
  • complex integration to AWS Cloudwatch - complex setup required
  • No IPv6, a big downside
  • less value compared with Linode or Digital Ocean
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon Lightsail is great for beginners who just want a cheap VPS to experiment on things. It's particularly great if you're at a hack-a-thon and looking for a fast way to prototype a throw away project. I would never recommend Lightsail to any production applications. Lightsail has been unreliable in terms of uptime. Sometimes, the instance just randomly crashes or reboots. Amazon will perform maintenance on your Lightsail instance without warning. Networking on Lightsail is also not great - there is also no IPv6 support.
Most Important Features
  • simplicity
  • ease of use
  • quickness to get started
Amazon Lightsail Feature Ratings
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) (7)
57.142857142857146%
5.7
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime
10%
1.0
Pre-configured templates
70%
7.0
Monitoring tools
50%
5.0
Pre-defined machine images
60%
6.0
Operating system support
80%
8.0
Security controls
50%
5.0
Automation
80%
8.0
Return on Investment
  • Hosting a production application on Lightsail will guarantee you a loss
  • Saved lots of time for our prototyping
  • Other VPS providers are better
Alternatives Considered
Linode and Digital Ocean are far more reliable than Amazon Lightsail. I would recommend against hosting any production applications in Lightsail. Even for prototyping, I would also suggest using the VPS provider of your choice for your production application because you can just scale that same VPS machine you used to prototype for production. Linode and Digital Ocean also has much better and fluid system monitoring experience.
Other Software Used
Return to navigation