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Amazon LightSail vs DigitalOcean: What are the differences?
Key Differences between Amazon LightSail and DigitalOcean
Amazon LightSail and DigitalOcean are two popular cloud hosting providers that offer scalable and reliable cloud computing services. While they both provide similar core functionalities, there are several key differences between the two platforms that may impact your decision when choosing a cloud hosting provider.
Pricing Model: Amazon LightSail offers a more complex pricing structure compared to DigitalOcean's transparent and straightforward pricing. LightSail charges separately for different components, such as instance usage, storage, data transfer, and additional features, making it more difficult to estimate costs accurately. On the other hand, DigitalOcean provides a fixed and predictable pricing model, which simplifies cost planning and budgeting for users.
Scalability and Flexibility: DigitalOcean provides a more flexible and granular scaling option compared to Amazon LightSail. While LightSail offers predefined instance sizes with limited upgrade options, DigitalOcean allows users to easily scale their infrastructure vertically, by resizing instance resources like CPU, RAM, and storage, according to their specific needs. Additionally, DigitalOcean offers horizontal scaling through load balancers, enabling users to distribute traffic across multiple instances for better performance.
Integration with Other AWS Services: Amazon LightSail is natively integrated with various other AWS services, such as AWS IAM, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Route 53. This integration makes it seamless to use LightSail in conjunction with other AWS tools and services, making it an excellent choice for users already invested in the AWS ecosystem. In contrast, DigitalOcean does not offer the same level of integration with external services, as it operates as a standalone cloud provider without extensive connections to other platforms.
Networking Options: DigitalOcean provides more advanced networking options compared to Amazon LightSail. LightSail offers a simplified networking setup, making it easier for beginners to configure their virtual private cloud (VPC) and manage networking resources. On the other hand, DigitalOcean provides users with more control over networking by offering features like floating IPs, custom DNS, private networking, and virtual private cloud (VPC) peering, allowing users to design and manage complex network architectures.
Service Availability and Global Reach: Amazon LightSail benefits from AWS's extensive global infrastructure, making it available in more regions compared to DigitalOcean. LightSail is currently available in 15 regions, allowing users to have a wider geographical presence for their applications. However, DigitalOcean has been expanding its data center locations rapidly and covers several major regions worldwide, providing adequate coverage for most users.
Managed Databases and One-Click Apps: DigitalOcean offers a wider range of managed databases and one-click app installations compared to Amazon LightSail. DigitalOcean provides managed database services for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis, simplifying the management and maintenance of these database systems. In addition, its marketplace includes a wide variety of pre-configured one-click apps, assisting users in quickly deploying popular software stacks. While Amazon LightSail does offer managed databases, its offering is more limited in comparison.
In summary, Amazon LightSail and DigitalOcean have key differences in their pricing models, scalability options, integration with other services, networking capabilities, global availability, and offerings of managed databases and one-click apps. Understanding these distinctions can help you make an informed decision when choosing the appropriate cloud hosting provider for your specific needs.
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.
Chose Hetnzer over DigitalOcean and Linode because Hetzner provides much cheaper VPS with much better specs. DigitalOcean might seems like a good choice at first because of how popular it is. But in reality, if all you need is a simple VPS, you won't benefit much from the their oversubscribed datacenters which often underperform other competitors. Linode is also a good choice. They have cheaper options and performs slightly better than DigitalOcean. In the end, choosing a more affordable host helps you save money. That's important when you're running a tight ship.
While Media Temple is more expensive than DigitalOcean, sometimes it is like comparing apples and oranges. DigitalOcean provides what is called Virtual Private Servers ( VPS ). While you seem to be on your own dedicated server, you are, in fact, sharing the same hardware with others.
If you need to be on your own dedicated server, or have other hardware requirements, you do not really have as many options with DigitalOcean. But with Media Temple, the skies the limit ( but so is potentially the cost ).
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.
Pros of Amazon LightSail
- Low cost4
- Simple Deployment4
- Simple pricing scheme1
Pros of DigitalOcean
- Great value for money560
- Simple dashboard364
- Good pricing362
- Ssds300
- Nice ui250
- Easy configuration191
- Great documentation156
- Ssh access138
- Great community135
- Ubuntu24
- Docker13
- IPv6 support12
- Private networking10
- 99.99% uptime SLA8
- Simple API7
- Great tutorials7
- 55 Second Provisioning6
- One Click Applications5
- Dokku4
- LAMP4
- Debian4
- CoreOS4
- Node.js4
- 1Gb/sec Servers3
- Word Press3
- Mean3
- LEMP3
- Simple Control Panel3
- Ghost3
- Runs CoreOS2
- Quick and no nonsense service2
- Django2
- Good Tutorials2
- Speed2
- Ruby on Rails2
- GitLab2
- Hex Core machines with dedicated ECC Ram and RAID SSD s2
- CentOS1
- Spaces1
- KVM Virtualization1
- Amazing Hardware1
- Transfer Globally1
- Fedora1
- FreeBSD1
- Drupal1
- FreeBSD Amp1
- Magento1
- ownCloud1
- RedMine1
- My go to server provider1
- Ease and simplicity1
- Nice1
- Find it superfitting with my requirements (SSD, ssh.1
- Easy Setup1
- Cheap1
- Static IP1
- It's the easiest to get started for small projects1
- Automatic Backup1
- Great support1
- Quick and easy to set up1
- Servers on demand - literally1
- Reliability1
- Variety of services0
- Managed Kubernetes0
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Cons of Amazon LightSail
Cons of DigitalOcean
- No live support chat3
- Pricing3
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