Amazon Lightsail
AWS virtual servers at fixed monthly prices from $5 with a public IPv4 address, plus managed databases and storage.
Founded 2016
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Amazon Lightsail is the virtual private server service of Amazon Web Services, launched in 2016. It sells fixed bundles: a Linux server with a public IPv4 address starts at $5 a month for 2 burstable vCPUs, 0.5 GB of memory, a 20 GB SSD and 1 TB of data transfer, and IPv6-only servers start at $3.50. Bundles are billed by the hour up to their monthly price, and Compute-optimized and Memory-optimized bundles start at $42 and $74.
Lightsail also sells managed MySQL and PostgreSQL databases from $15 a month, object storage from $1, container services from $7 a node, load balancers at $18 and CDN distributions from $2.50. It runs in 19 AWS Regions, three of them in the US. Outbound transfer beyond a plan's allowance costs $0.09 per GB in the US regions, and Lightsail has no managed Kubernetes service.
Best for
Developers, small businesses and students who want simple virtual servers with fixed monthly prices on AWS, and a path to Amazon EC2 and other AWS services as a project grows.
Pros
- Fixed monthly bundles: Linux with a public IPv4 address from $5 (2 burstable vCPUs, 0.5 GB, 20 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer), IPv6-only from $3.50, billed hourly up to that price
- Static IPs (5 per account, free while attached), DNS management (6 zones, 3 million queries a month) and monitoring with alarms at no extra charge
- Managed MySQL and PostgreSQL from $15 a month, with free automatic backups and point-in-time restore over the last 7 days
- Uptime SLA of 99.5% per instance, and 99.99% per Region for instances spread across two or more Availability Zones
- Connects to other AWS services through VPC peering, and Upgrade to EC2 exports an instance snapshot to Amazon EC2
Cons
- Outbound transfer beyond the allowance costs $0.09 per GB in the US regions, and inbound traffic also counts toward the allowance
- No managed Kubernetes; GPUs only in the separate Lightsail for Research virtual computers, from $2.37 an hour
- Three US regions (N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon); six Asia Pacific and South America regions get half the transfer allowance
- Instances and managed databases are billed until they are deleted, even while stopped
- Lightsail's own free trials ended in August 2026; the AWS Free Tier credits that replaced them go only to new AWS accounts
Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly (12-month total) |
|---|---|---|
| Linux General PurposeStarting price with public IPv4: 2 burstable vCPUs (5% baseline each), 0.5 GB, 20 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $3.50; billed hourly up to the monthly price; no annual price listed | $5/mo | no yearly price |
| Linux Memory-optimizedStarting price with public IPv4: 2 vCPUs, 16 GB, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $70; billed hourly up to the monthly price | $74/mo | no yearly price |
| Linux Compute-optimizedStarting price with public IPv4: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $38; billed hourly up to the monthly price | $42/mo | no yearly price |
| Windows General PurposeStarting price with public IPv4 and a Windows Server license: 2 burstable vCPUs (5% baseline each), 0.5 GB, 30 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $8; billed hourly up to the monthly price | $9.50/mo | no yearly price |
| Windows Memory-optimizedStarting price with public IPv4: 2 vCPUs, 16 GB, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $130; billed hourly up to the monthly price | $134/mo | no yearly price |
| Windows Compute-optimizedStarting price with public IPv4: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 160 GB SSD, 5 TB transfer; IPv6-only from $96; billed hourly up to the monthly price | $100/mo | no yearly price |
Prices checked on .
Features
In Cloud hosting
| Feature | Amazon Lightsail |
|---|---|
| Free trial | Yes · Lightsail's own trials ended Aug 2026; new AWS accounts get $100 in credits plus up to $100 for activities, usable on Lightsail on the Free or Paid plan; Free plan up to 6 months |
| Managed databases | Yes · MySQL or PostgreSQL; Standard from $15/month (1 GB, 40 GB SSD), high availability plans cost double; free automatic backups with 7-day point-in-time restore |
| Managed Kubernetes | No · No Kubernetes service in Lightsail; container services run Docker containers from $7/month per node (0.25 shared vCPU, 512 MB) |
| Object storage | Yes · Buckets from $1/month (5 GB, 25 GB transfer), $3 (100 GB) or $5 (250 GB); overage $0.023/GB stored and $0.09/GB transfer in US regions |
| GPU instances | Partial · Only in Lightsail for Research (not offered in N. Virginia): GPU XL (4 vCPUs, 16 GB) from $2.37/hour in Ohio and Oregon, up to GPU 4XL; regular Lightsail bundles have no GPUs |
| Automatic backups | Add-on · Daily automatic snapshots of Linux instances and disks, 7 kept, free to turn on; storage $0.05/GB-month; not for Windows; databases back up free |
| DDoS protection | Yes · AWS Shield Standard: automatic layer 3 and 4 protection for all AWS customers at no extra charge; the Lightsail pages themselves do not mention it |
| Uptime SLA | Yes · 99.5% per instance; 99.99% per Region for instances in 2+ Availability Zones; credits 10%, 30% or 100% by support case; 99.95% for high availability databases |
| Data center regions | Yes · 19 AWS Regions / 3 US (N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon); Hong Kong, Jakarta, Malaysia and Spain must be enabled before use |
| Included bandwidth | Yes · 1 TB to 10 TB/month per bundle, inbound counted too, pooled per bundle type and Region; overage on outbound only, $0.09/GB in US; half in 6 Regions |