Amazon Lightsail vs Google App Engine comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0, while Google is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.2% mindshare in PSP, compared to Google’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Google users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 13 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,219 Views
1,219 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google App Engine

Read 36 Google App Engine reviews

1,775 Views
1,615 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

Google App Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Google App Engine and Amazon Lightsail are both cloud computing offerings. Google App Engine holds an advantage in auto-scaling and development environment support, while Amazon Lightsail is favored for its simple and cost-effective setup.

Features: Google App Engine provides robust auto-scaling, integrated development tools, and comprehensive built-in services like data storage and task queues. Amazon Lightsail delivers easy virtual server provisioning, predictable pricing, and pre-configured environments, making it ideal for straightforward deployments.

Room for Improvement: Google App Engine could improve its ease of deployment and configuration simplicity for new users. It might also focus on enhancing compatibility with non-Google services. Additionally, providing more flexible pricing options would be beneficial. Amazon Lightsail should expand its scalability features, introduce more advanced networking solutions, and offer deeper customization options for complex applications.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google App Engine requires intricate deployment strategies, supported by detailed customer service, which benefits large-scale apps. Amazon Lightsail excels in offering straightforward, quick setup through pre-configured templates, with efficient support tailored for smaller-scale needs.

Pricing and ROI: Google App Engine employs usage-based pricing, potentially higher for extensive use but offering good returns for dynamic applications. Amazon Lightsail features low flat-rate pricing, ideal for small to medium projects, providing predictable costs with a focus on simple deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Lightsail vs. Google App Engine Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Google App Engine

February 2026

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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

Google App Engine

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google App Engine is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google App Engine	2.4%
Amazon Lightsail	2.2%
Other	95.4%

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.

Read full review

Rajesh Kadyan

Senior Engineer at Brillio

Have managed resources seamlessly thanks to robust platform capabilities

The areas of Google App Engine that I would to improve or enhance include its allowance for complete end-to-end deployment and scalability; however, it is manageable only for a few languages. For instance, it doesn't support languages C and C++, only basic support for Node.js, Java, and Ruby. It's not a comprehensive solution for all scenarios. Moreover, the security feature is based on IAM roles, but it should ideally be based on Active Directory (AD) roles. For IAM-based roles, we need to add the proper users and provide all security permissions manually. In an AD-based model, we would simply add users to a specific group, and all permissions would be inherited.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"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."

"Amazon Lightsail is a virtual instance that is a service of Amazon AWS, designed to store data securely and provide applications through the cloud at an affordable cost to the SME sector."

"Implementations are completed with a few clicks, allowing efficient transitions to other development stages, and setup is easy whether for online support or basic business requirements."

"We use Amazon Lightsail for hosting security components in-house and AI modules."

"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."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"Its ability to integrate with most devices helps users who have different or old devices."

"The initial setup is okay. It's not too complex. Deployment took about one day."

"Google App Engine is highly scalable and can integrate easily with other applications."

"What I appreciate most about Google App Engine is that the deployment is significantly easier compared to a conventional Linux platform."

"The customer service is excellent and very responsive."

"I've found that all of the features are valuable, especially the shared drive and the ability for multiple people to use their documents at the same time."

"The features of Google App Engine that I have found most valuable for my use cases include its easy deployment process, where there is minimal configuration required, allowing a few details in a configuration file before pushing it to Google App Engine, which auto-scales and requires less maintenance with no downtime over three years."

"It is simple to use. It is much simpler than AWS. It is also very powerful."

More Google App Engine pros

Cons

"When you need to add some custom rules to Amazon Lightsail, the auto scaling feature is a bit difficult."

"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."

"The product's network features need enhancement."

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

"The solution could be smoother than it is."

"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."

"I don't see this solution as enterprise-ready, for bigger companies like banks."

"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."

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"One drawback is that the app needs to be written to be compatible with Google App Engine, making it not cloud agnostic, hindering straightforward migration to other platforms such as AWS."

"The documentation and community are lacking for this product."

"There needs to be more directions in terms of how to use the solution."

"The interface and IDE, where I write code, could be improved. Unlike other IDEs like Visual Studio, it lacks easy access to available functions."

"The only concern is that there is a number of the offerings which are built on their own proprietary technologies. With some of the offerings in Google Cloud, it's difficult to have a path to migrate to other cloud providers."

"I think there's still a lot that can be done with Google Meet and the video conferencing part of it. It could be more dynamic in terms of what can be done with it."

"The main drawback with Google App Engine's standard environment was its restrictions. We could not work with file systems, run shell scripts from the environment, or use WebSockets."

"The areas of Google App Engine that I would to improve or enhance include its allowance for complete end-to-end deployment and scalability; however, it is manageable only for a few languages."

More Google App Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's very cheap."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"I would like to have more free application with it. Some of the applications, I am paying more for them. I think that they must be free."

"We pay the license yearly. It's about $6 a month, which is $72 a year per person, so it's about $500."

"If we don't know how to work with the tool, we might have some spikes in price."

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

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	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	13

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 do you like most about Google App Engine?

The product's setup and deployment phases are easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google App Engine?

I believe it is reasonably priced. I've never heard anyone express that the licenses are too expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google App Engine?

The error logging system in Google App Engine could be enhanced. While there are troubleshooting documents with Google-defined error logs, identifying the exact root cause can be challenging. Often...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 22% of the time

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 20% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 9% of the time

Render vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 9% of the time

AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Google App Engine

Compared 19% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google App Engine

Compared 17% of the time

Heroku vs Google App Engine

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google App Engine

Compared 8% of the time

Acquia Cloud vs Google App Engine

Compared 5% of the time

More Google App Engine Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail

February 2026

Download Amazon Lightsail product report

Buyer's Guide

Google App Engine

January 2026

Download Google App Engine 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)

Google App Engine is a Platform-as-a-Service (Paas) provider that equips web application developers with all the resources and tools that they need to develop, test, and run their applications on Google's infrastructure. Everything is built into the kit, so with one download of the SDK, you'll be well on your way to first-rate apps.

Google

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Khan Academy, Best Buy, Gigya, MetOffice, Getaround, Mimiboard, NewsLimited, WebFilings, and CloudLock.

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Google App Engine

February 2026

Free Report: Amazon Lightsail vs. Google App Engine

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Lightsail vs. Google App Engine and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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