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  5. Amazon EC2 vs Amazon LightSail vs Apache Tomcat

Amazon EC2 vs Amazon LightSail vs Apache Tomcat

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2
Stacks48.6K
Followers36.0K
Votes2.5K
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Stacks16.9K
Followers12.6K
Votes201
GitHub Stars8.0K
Forks5.3K
Amazon LightSail
Amazon LightSail
Stacks186
Followers394
Votes9

Amazon EC2 vs Amazon LightSail vs Apache Tomcat: What are the differences?

Introduction: In this comparison, we will outline the key differences between Amazon EC2, Amazon Lightsail, and Apache Tomcat, focusing on specific aspects that set them apart in terms of features and capabilities.

1. Scalability: Amazon EC2 provides flexible and scalable virtual servers with on-demand capacity, making it suitable for applications with fluctuating workloads. On the other hand, Amazon Lightsail offers a simpler way to set up virtual private servers but with limited scalability options compared to EC2. Apache Tomcat, being a Java-based application server, can be easily scaled horizontally by adding more servers to accommodate increased demand.

2. Management and Pricing: Amazon EC2 offers a wide range of instance types and pricing options, allowing users to customize their virtual servers based on performance and budget requirements. Amazon Lightsail, however, simplifies pricing by including a bundle of resources (e.g., CPU, RAM, storage) in a fixed monthly cost, reducing complexity but limiting customization. Apache Tomcat, being an open-source application server, incurs no licensing costs but requires more manual configuration and management compared to cloud-based solutions like EC2 and Lightsail.

3. Ease of Use: Amazon Lightsail is designed for users who are new to cloud computing, offering a user-friendly interface and simplified setup process for deploying virtual servers and applications. In contrast, Amazon EC2 caters to more experienced users who require advanced configuration options and flexibility in managing their virtual infrastructure. Apache Tomcat, while versatile in terms of customization, may require more technical expertise for deployment and maintenance compared to cloud-based services like EC2 and Lightsail.

4. Integration with Other AWS Services: Amazon EC2 seamlessly integrates with a wide range of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for enhanced functionality, such as Amazon RDS for database management and Amazon S3 for file storage. Amazon Lightsail also offers integration with select AWS services but with fewer options compared to EC2. Apache Tomcat can be integrated with various third-party libraries and frameworks, allowing developers to build complex applications with diverse functionalities.

5. Security Features: Amazon EC2 provides a robust set of security features, including virtual private cloud (VPC) for network isolation, encryption options, and identity and access management (IAM) for controlling user permissions. While Amazon Lightsail also prioritizes security, it may offer fewer advanced security features compared to EC2. Apache Tomcat relies on standard Java security mechanisms for protecting applications and data, making it essential for developers to configure secure settings based on specific requirements.

6. Support and Documentation: Amazon EC2 offers comprehensive documentation, online forums, and professional support options for troubleshooting and guidance on using the service effectively. Amazon Lightsail provides basic support resources but may have limited documentation and community engagement compared to EC2. Apache Tomcat benefits from a large user community, extensive documentation, and third-party support options for resolving issues and optimizing the performance of Java-based applications.

In Summary, Amazon EC2 provides scalable virtual servers with advanced customization options and seamless integration with other AWS services, while Amazon Lightsail offers a simpler, cost-effective alternative with limited scalability features. Apache Tomcat, as an application server, focuses on Java development and requires more manual setup and configuration but offers versatility in building complex applications.

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Advice on Amazon EC2, Apache Tomcat, Amazon LightSail

Hari
Hari

Mar 3, 2020

Needs advice

I was in a situation where I have to configure 40 RHEL servers 20 each for Apache HTTP Server and Tomcat server. My task was to

  1. configure LVM with required logical volumes, format and mount for HTTP and Tomcat servers accordingly.
  2. Install apache and tomcat.
  3. Generate and apply selfsigned certs to http server.
  4. Modify default ports on Tomcat to different ports.
  5. Create users on RHEL for application support team.
  6. other administrative tasks like, start, stop and restart HTTP and Tomcat services.

I have utilized the power of ansible for all these tasks, which made it easy and manageable.

419k views419k
Comments
Craig
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
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

Detailed Comparison

Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Amazon LightSail
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.

Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.

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.
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Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
8.0K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
5.3K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
48.6K
Stacks
16.9K
Stacks
186
Followers
36.0K
Followers
12.6K
Followers
394
Votes
2.5K
Votes
201
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
  • 79
    Easy
  • 72
    Java
  • 49
    Popular
  • 1
    Spring web
Cons
  • 3
    Blocking - each http request block a thread
  • 2
    Easy to set up
Pros
  • 4
    Simple Deployment
  • 4
    Low cost
  • 1
    Simple pricing scheme

What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2, Apache Tomcat, Amazon LightSail?

NGINX

NGINX

nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.

DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean

We take the complexities out of cloud hosting by offering blazing fast, on-demand SSD cloud servers, straightforward pricing, a simple API, and an easy-to-use control panel.

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server is a powerful and flexible HTTP/1.1 compliant web server. Originally designed as a replacement for the NCSA HTTP Server, it has grown to be the most popular web server on the Internet.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure

Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. You can build applications using any language, tool or framework. And you can integrate your public cloud applications with your existing IT environment.

Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine is a service that provides virtual machines that run on Google infrastructure. Google Compute Engine offers scale, performance, and value that allows you to easily launch large compute clusters on Google's infrastructure. There are no upfront investments and you can run up to thousands of virtual CPUs on a system that has been designed from the ground up to be fast, and to offer strong consistency of performance.

Linode

Linode

Get a server running in minutes with your choice of Linux distro, resources, and node location.

Unicorn

Unicorn

Unicorn is an HTTP server for Rack applications designed to only serve fast clients on low-latency, high-bandwidth connections and take advantage of features in Unix/Unix-like kernels. Slow clients should only be served by placing a reverse proxy capable of fully buffering both the the request and response in between Unicorn and slow clients.

Microsoft IIS

Microsoft IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows Server is a flexible, secure and manageable Web server for hosting anything on the Web. From media streaming to web applications, IIS's scalable and open architecture is ready to handle the most demanding tasks.

Scaleway

Scaleway

European cloud computing company proposing a complete & simple public cloud ecosystem, bare-metal servers & private datacenter infrastructures.

Passenger

Passenger

Phusion Passenger is a web server and application server, designed to be fast, robust and lightweight. It takes a lot of complexity out of deploying web apps, adds powerful enterprise-grade features that are useful in production, and makes administration much easier and less complex.

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