AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs Amazon Lightsail comparison

Amazon Lightsail and AWS Elastic Beanstalk are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Amazon Lightsail is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0, while AWS Elastic Beanstalk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.8. Amazon Lightsail holds a 2.1% mindshare in PSP, compared to AWS Elastic Beanstalk’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Lightsail users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of AWS Elastic Beanstalk users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 13 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,089 Views
1,089 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Read 11 AWS Elastic Beanstalk reviews

590 Views
590 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Amazon Lightsail and AWS Elastic Beanstalk are cloud computing solutions within AWS's ecosytem, targeting diverse user needs. AWS Elastic Beanstalk, with its enhanced scalability and customization features, holds an advantage for complex and large-scale applications, while Amazon Lightsail is preferred for simpler, more budget-friendly setups.

Features: Amazon Lightsail provides simple, scalable instances that include networking, storage, and DNS management. It's ideal for users needing straightforward application hosting. AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports complex applications with automatic scaling, load balancing, and integration with various AWS services.

Room for Improvement: Amazon Lightsail could enhance its capabilities for larger applications and offer additional configuration options for more flexibility. Meanwhile, AWS Elastic Beanstalk can improve its cost structure for smaller projects and provide more straightforward setup processes for beginner users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon Lightsail's deployment process is catered to low-complexity setups and quick launches, and its customer service efficiently handles basic inquiries. AWS Elastic Beanstalk manages deployment complexities with customizable environments, excelling in addressing complex customer queries with expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon Lightsail offers predictable, low-cost pricing starting at $5 per month, suited for small projects with minimal configuration, resulting in decent ROI for simple applications. AWS Elastic Beanstalk, with comprehensive features, presents potentially higher costs but delivers substantial ROI for enterprises needing robust, scalable solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. Amazon Lightsail Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. Amazon Lightsail

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Lightsail

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Elastic Beanstalk is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon Lightsail	2.1%
AWS Elastic Beanstalk	0.9%
Other	97.0%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

VictorAugusto De Souza E Silva

Cloud Engineer at Leek Solucoes

Has simplified website migration and reduced hosting costs significantly

Amazon Lightsail should have some kind of scale service. To be more clear, if I need to scale up my instance or VPS, I need to create a snapshot and create a new instance from this snapshot with more resources, such as CPU, RAM, or disk. It would be beneficial to have a welcome instance where we can just set the instance, go there to edit and select a greater instance from large to x-large or 2x-large. I do not see the need to scale down, but it would be good too. When we are on an x-large for testing purposes and need to do a rollback to a large one, we need to scale down. We do not have this capability on Amazon Lightsail.

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Harendra Sisodia

Business Analyst & Agile Strategist at Charles Schwab

Utilize auto-scaling and monitoring to efficiently manage application infrastructure

The key features of AWS Elastic Beanstalk include auto-scaling capabilities for applications experiencing traffic fluctuations, ensuring high availability and cost-effectiveness. AWS Elastic Beanstalk integrates with AWS CloudWatch to provide metrics like latency and CPU utilization, allowing easy monitoring of application performance. It supports multiple programming languages and frameworks, supports multi-environment for different stages of the application lifecycle, and is cost-effective as you pay based on the resources launched.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I find Lightsail particularly valuable for hosting WordPress as it is easier to set up than a bare metal server, which requires extensive configuration and package installations."

"One of the product's most valuable features is its fixed pricing, which makes it ideal for small projects and websites that do not require scaling."

"Amazon Lightsail is easy to use and very cost-effective compared to other services such as Azure and Google."

"The instances optimized for WordPress are very lightweight and straightforward in configuration."

"The most valuable features are the usability and customer service."

"The benefit of using Amazon Lightsail over the AWS console management is that it is a small platform that is easy to understand, as it has only the instance, DNS, Route 53, snapshots, backups, and load balancing network."

"The intuitive management console of Amazon Lightsail is very good because it is simple; with just a few clicks, I can set a blog online, a WordPress blog online, a new e-commerce online, or just a new application with NodeJS."

"EC2 instances are pre-configured and upgraded, so you can simply select and instantly pay for an EC2 instance to set up WordPress, Node.js, or a server container using Docker."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"Elastic Beanstalk is helpful and easy to manage services, even when dealing with multiple clients."

"Elastic Beanstalk simplifies deploying and managing applications."

"One of the most valuable aspects is that developers can access logs directly. They can download them from the AWS console within Elastic Beanstalk."

"I highly recommend it to others and frequently discuss it with customers."

"Elastic Beanstalk is very easy to use, providing infrastructure to deploy our third-party application to the cloud within 15 to 20 minutes."

"The feature I like most about Elastic Beanstalk is the way I do not have to do anything, just deploy my app."

"I would rate the overall solution a ten out of ten."

"Elastic Beanstalk is helpful and easy to manage services, even when dealing with multiple clients."

More AWS Elastic Beanstalk pros

Cons

"Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four."

"The solution could be smoother than it is."

"Currently, there is limited support available while installing or configuring it, and resources are primarily available through community-contributed articles."

"To improve, I feel the disk management is too basic. I can't easily partition the disk for the operating system. I have to follow the main configuration that is already set up in the template. To partition the disk, I would need to deploy the operating system first and then make changes, but it's not an ideal method. I would recommend improving the disk management."

"The disadvantage I see is data storage; if any data crash occurs in the cloud server, that will lead to significant losses for the customer."

"Backward compatibility and the flexibility to choose software versions while installing would be improvements."

"The product's network features need enhancement."

"Based on my limited exploration of Amazon Lightsail so far, I would like to see improvements in the console, particularly in user behavior and some cost-related aspects."

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"Logs and debugging can sometimes be cumbersome, and there could be a more seamless method to analyze application issues without relying heavily on CloudWatch, which would improve my experience."

"Sometimes there are issues when auto-scaling with CloudFront."

"One area where AWS Elastic Beanstalk struggles is with the complexity of deployments. As deployments become more complex, technical constraints can become a burden."

"From what I've observed, it seems AWS has ceased further development on Elastic Beanstalk."

"Sometimes it is difficult to use for the first time. The automatic scaling functionality could use improvement."

"AWS Elastic Beanstalk could improve its auto-scaling feature to better detect potential AI-based attacks or misuses that could lead to unexpected costs."

"One area where AWS Elastic Beanstalk struggles is with the complexity of deployments."

"The automatic scaling functionality could use improvement."

More AWS Elastic Beanstalk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The prices are better than EC2 machines, for instance, because they are simplified management, but it works well, and I am able to run everything that I need on it."

"The services that it provides are good for the price."

"Amazon Lightsail is a bit cheaper than Amazon EC2."

"Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month."

"The affordability of starting at five dollars makes it an attractive option for startups and medium-sized companies, aligning with budget considerations while offering essential cloud services."

"It's very cheap."

"A few months ago, Lightsail's pricing increased, likely due to the addition of the new VPC feature."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

University

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

13%

Outsourcing Company

11%

University

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Lightsail?

In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Lightsail?

Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month. This cost may increase with additional features like a static IP.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Lightsail?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

AWS Elastic Beanstalk itself is free to use, but there are charges for other integrated services like RDS ( /products/amazon-rds-reviews ), ELBs, and EC2s. If only AWS Elastic Beanstalk is used, th...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

Elastic Beanstalk can enhance its customizability further, especially in terms of deployment options.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

I have used AWS Elastic Beanstalk ( /products/aws-elastic-beanstalk-reviews ) primarily to manage infrastructure. The main purpose is to offload the complexity of managing servers, operating system...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 28% of the time

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 24% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Render vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Heroku vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Compared 25% of the time

Heroku vs AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Compared 21% of the time

Google App Engine vs AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Compared 13% of the time

More AWS Elastic Beanstalk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail

January 2026

Download Amazon Lightsail product report

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

January 2026

Download AWS Elastic Beanstalk product report

Overview

Lightsail is ideal for simpler workloads, quick deployments, and getting started on AWS. It’s designed to help you start small, and then scale as you grow.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Elastic Beanstalk streamlines deploying and managing web applications, providing efficient session management, direct log access, and seamless rollback during deployment for uninterrupted operations.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is designed for developers seeking ease of use in provisioning and deployment without any application downtime. With auto-scaling capabilities that enhance application performance, users can deploy directly on EC2 or Dockerized environments. While it supports a range of application frameworks, improvements in integration with CloudFront, auto-scaling against AI-based attacks, and simplified HTTPS integrations are suggested by users. Additionally, expanding Docker support and enhancing documentation can address user challenges, offering a more comprehensive experience.

What features make AWS Elastic Beanstalk efficient?

Direct Log Access: Easily retrieve logs through the console for efficient monitoring.
Session Management: Manages sessions between Elastic Beanstalk and RDS smoothly.
Auto-Scaling: Enhances performance by adjusting resources automatically.
Versioning: Allows application changes without downtime, boosting flexibility.

What benefits do users find in AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

Continuous Operation: Seamless rollbacks ensure website functionality during deployments.
Ease of Use: Simplifies the provisioning of applications and environmental configurations.
Flexibility: Offers versatile framework support, catering to different application needs.
Integration: Facilitates integration with services like S3 and LoadBalancer for efficient management.

Organizations adopt AWS Elastic Beanstalk for deploying web applications such as Django, Laravel, native PHP, and .NET Core. They leverage its management capabilities for environmental configurations like Python virtual environments and PHP-FPM. It's a practical tool for educators and businesses managing client migrations, utilizing its seamless integration with AWS services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. Amazon Lightsail

December 2025

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