Overview

Amazon EC2

Stacks48.9K

Followers36.0K

Votes2.5K

Amazon LightSail

Stacks189

Followers394

Votes9

Amazon EC2 vs Amazon LightSail: What are the differences?

Introduction: In this markdown, we will discuss the key differences between Amazon EC2 and Amazon LightSail.

Scalability: Amazon EC2 offers more scalability options, allowing users to quickly scale up or down based on computing needs. On the other hand, Amazon LightSail is designed for simpler workloads and does not offer the same level of scalability as EC2.
Pricing: While both services have a pay-as-you-go pricing model, Amazon LightSail offers more predictable and fixed pricing compared to Amazon EC2, which can have fluctuating costs depending on usage and instances.
Features and complexity: Amazon EC2 provides a wide range of features and configurations for advanced users who require specific settings and customization options. In contrast, Amazon LightSail is more user-friendly and offers simplified features, making it easier for beginners to deploy and manage virtual servers.
Integration with other AWS services: Amazon EC2 seamlessly integrates with various AWS services like S3, RDS, and CloudWatch, allowing users to create complex and interconnected environments. On the contrary, Amazon LightSail is a standalone service with limited integration capabilities with other AWS services.
Performance and Capacity: Amazon EC2 is known for its high-performance computing capabilities and supports a wide range of instance types for different workloads. In comparison, Amazon LightSail has limited instance types and lower capacity, which may hinder performance for high-demand applications.
Support and Documentation: Amazon EC2 offers comprehensive documentation and support resources for troubleshooting and managing instances effectively. In contrast, Amazon LightSail provides basic support and documentation, which may lack depth compared to the resources available for EC2.

In Summary, Amazon EC2 and Amazon LightSail differ in terms of scalability, pricing, features, integration, performance, and support resources, catering to different user needs and preferences.

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Advice on Amazon EC2, Amazon LightSail

Craig

Principal Consultant at Rootwork InfoTech LLC

Jul 16, 2020

Decided

We first selected Google Cloud Platform about five years ago, because HIPAA compliance was significantly cheaper and easier on Google compared to AWS. We have stayed with Google Cloud because it provides an excellent command line tool for managing resources, and every resource has a well-designed, well-documented API. SDKs for most of these APIs are available for many popular languages. I have never worked with a cloud platform that's so amenable to automation. Google is also ahead of its competitors in Kubernetes support.

200k views200k

Comments

Jerome/Zen

Software Engineer

Aug 2, 2020

Needs advice

DigitalOcean was where I began; its USD5/month is extremely competitive and the overall experience as highly user-friendly.

However, their offerings were lacking and integrating with other resources I had on AWS was getting more costly (due to transfer costs on AWS). Eventually I moved the entire project off DO's Droplets and onto AWS's EC2.

One may initially find the cost (w/o free tier) and interface of AWS daunting however with good planning you can achieve highly cost-efficient systems with savings plans, spot instances, etcetera.

Do not dive into AWS head-first! Seriously, don't. Stand back and read pricing documentation thoroughly. You can, not to the fault of AWS, easily go way overbudget. Your first action upon getting your AWS account should be to set up billing alarms for estimated and current bill totals.

264k views264k

Comments

Tejas

Founder, CEO at Thalia Technologies

Apr 9, 2021

Decided

Our company builds micro saas applications. Based on the application we decide whether to deploy it over one of our shared servers or on a dedicated server.

We decided to Lightsail over EC2.

Lightsail is a lightweight, simplified product offering that has a dramatically simplified console. The instances run in a special VPC, but this aspect is also provisioned automatically, and invisible in the console.
Lightsail supports optionally peering this hidden VPC with your default VPC in the same AWS region, allowing Lightsail instances to access services like EC2 and RDS in the default VPC within the same AWS account.
Bandwidth is unlimited, but of course free bandwidth is not -- however, Lightsail instances do include a significant monthly bandwidth allowance before any bandwidth-related charges apply.
It has predictable pricing with no surprises at the end.
The flexibility of EC2 leads inevitably to complexity. Whereas for Lighsail there is virtually no learning curve, here. You don't even technically need to know how to use SSH with a private key -- the Lightsail console even has a built-in SSH client -- but there is no requirement that you use it. You can access these instances normally, with a standard SSH client.

45.5k views45.5k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Amazon EC2	Amazon LightSail
It is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.	Everything you need to jumpstart your project on AWS—compute, storage, and networking—for a low, predictable price. Launch a virtual private server with just a few clicks.
Elastic – Amazon EC2 enables you to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days. You can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously.;Completely Controlled – You have complete control of your instances. You have root access to each one, and you can interact with them as you would any machine.;Flexible – You have the choice of multiple instance types, operating systems, and software packages. Amazon EC2 allows you to select a configuration of memory, CPU, instance storage, and the boot partition size that is optimal for your choice of operating system and application.;Designed for use with other Amazon Web Services – Amazon EC2 works in conjunction with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon SimpleDB and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to provide a complete solution for computing, query processing and storage across a wide range of applications.;Reliable – Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly and predictably commissioned. The Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement commitment is 99.95% availability for each Amazon EC2 Region.;Secure – Amazon EC2 works in conjunction with Amazon VPC to provide security and robust networking functionality for your compute resources.;Inexpensive – Amazon EC2 passes on to you the financial benefits of Amazon’s scale. You pay a very low rate for the compute capacity you actually consume.;Easy to Start – Quickly get started with Amazon EC2 by visiting AWS Marketplace to choose preconfigured software on Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). You can quickly deploy this software to EC2 via 1-Click launch or with the EC2 console.	-
Statistics
Stacks 48.9K	Stacks 189
Followers 36.0K	Followers 394
Votes 2.5K	Votes 9
Pros & Cons
Pros 647 Quick and reliable cloud servers 515 Scalability 393 Easy management 277 Low cost 271 Auto-scaling Cons 14 Ui could use a lot of work 6 High learning curve when compared to PaaS 3 Extremely poor CPU performance	Pros 4 Low cost 4 Simple Deployment 1 Simple pricing scheme

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