Amazon EC2 vs AWS Lightsail

June 19, 2020 / Nirav Shah

What Is Amazon Lightsail? Simplified Cloud Hosting Explained

• “Amazon Lightsail is a virtual private service that gives you templates to choose from. You may either choose a blank OS or an operating system pre-baked with applications and ready to use with the click of a button.”

What Is Amazon EC2? Scalable Cloud Computing Explained

• As per AWS
• “Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers. Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment.”
• Amazon ec2 in cloud is a part of AWS’s cloud-computing platform, which allows users to rent virtual computers.

Features of Amazon Lightsail Virtual Private Service

• Easy and Fast
• Built on AWS
• Grows with your Business
• Low Predictable Costs
• Free Subscription

Amazon EC2 vs AWS Lightsail: Key Differences Compared

• Amazon lightsail pricing
  • Each Lightsail instant includes a set of different services like EC2 for compute, EBS for storage, and Route S3 for DNS queries and SSL encryption for security management. The biggest difference between both cloud services, EC2 and Lightsail can be understood in terms of prices. In diffrence of  aws lightsail vs ec2, Each Lightsail instance includes one to 5 TB of internet data transfer allowance whereas, for EC2 instance, an enterprise may have to pay $90 per TB. So,lightsail aws pricing is much more affordable when compared to Amazon EC2 instances.

• Suitability
  • If there is some application that requires a minimum number of configuration options then Lightsail is the best choice in that case. If there is some application that requires a highly configurable environment or high CPU performance consistently like video encoding or analytics then Lightsail might not be ideal in that case. You should opt for Amazon EC2 instances to manage these types of applications.

• Pre-configured Templates
  • It takes time to spin up a server through the Menu Interface. Lightsail includes multiple virtual images and Developers have the flexibility to choose a pre-configured template with SSD storage, DNS configuration management options, and a static IP address. The package may run on Linux AMI or Ubuntu both and it includes a variety of developer stacks too like LAMP, LEMP, MEAN or Node.js etc. Further, Lightsail can be configured with popular apps like Drupal, Magento, Joomla, WordPress etc. AWS has secure shell capabilities that enable server setup without worrying about key management or browser plug-ins.

• API integration
  • Any Lightsail instance is not possible to access directly through the AWS Management Console. For this purpose, Developers should set up Virtual Private Cloud to access more advanced features associated with other services. Developers can integrate Lightsail with a variety of APIs for more advanced functionalities

• Security
  • Cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. You can trust amazon ec2 security at a point of view of Privacy.
  • AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs at AWS services in the AWS Cloud. AWS also provides services that can be used by user securely.

• Amazon EC2 Instance Types: Which Is Right for Your Workload?

  • amazon ec2 instance types comprise varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity and give you the opportunity to choose the proper mix of resources & assets for your applications.

• Pricing for Instances
  • It is possible to stop and start an instance in both cloud services either EC2 or Lightsail. In practice, AWS still charges for Lightsail instances when an instance is stopped. At the same time, AWS does not charge anything for EC2 instances when it is stopped. The only solution is to take the backup of the instance and delete it from the Lightsail history. Enterprises should also pay fees to keep a static IP address in use. They need to pay $.005 per hour or $3.60 per month extra to maintain the web server continuity.
  • For each account, there are some limitations defined like each account is limited to 20 Lightsail instances, 5 static IPs, 3 DNS zones etc. So, you have to keep these facts in mind when planning to buy instances for your next application.

• AWS EC2 & AWS Lightsail price comparison
• AWS EC2 Pricing

• AWS Lightsail Pricing

Should You Choose Amazon EC2 or AWS Lightsail for Your Project?

• When we look at the process, Lightsail costs are built on the top of EC2. Enterprises can save money when plan the compute, storage, and networking requirements with EC2. Further, AWS offers the best tools and services to backup or spin up or down EC2 servers. But Lightsail can be the best choice for individual or departmental apps that run for a longer time span.