Amazon Lightsail vs IBM Public Cloud comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.8, while IBM is ranked #15 with an average rating of 6.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.0% mindshare in PSP, compared to IBM’s 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 12 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,052 Views
1,052 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Public Cloud

Read 18 IBM Public Cloud reviews

2,759 Views
2,593 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

IBM Public Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

IBM Public Cloud and Amazon Lightsail compete in cloud solutions, with Amazon Lightsail having an upper hand in accessibility and simplicity, while IBM Public Cloud excels in robust enterprise features.

Features: IBM Public Cloud provides AI integration, large-scale data processing, and compliance certifications, suitable for enterprises. Amazon Lightsail offers virtual servers, databases, and networking services, designed for small businesses and developers seeking ease and speed.

Room for Improvement: IBM Public Cloud could improve deployment speed and integrate more intuitive user interfaces for small businesses. Amazon Lightsail might enhance scalability options, bolster security features, and offer more enterprise-grade support for growing businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon Lightsail ensures intuitive deployment through pre-configured blueprints and extensive documentation, suitable for quick launches. IBM Public Cloud offers extensive support for complex environments, which, while thorough, may require longer setup times for comprehensive operations.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Public Cloud has higher initial setup costs but offers ROI with its scalability and extensive features for large enterprises. Amazon Lightsail provides a cost-effective model with predictable monthly costs, yielding favorable ROI for smaller operations given its lower expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Lightsail vs. IBM Public Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. IBM Public Cloud

July 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

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Public Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

15th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IoT Platforms (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Atul Chauhan

DevOps engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Auto-manage features optimize server management and reduce costs

In terms of features, Amazon Lightsail can auto-manage the server with capabilities such as Auto Scaling and Placement Groups. They can auto-manage, and the billing cost is reduced because they have limited technology, which helps to optimize our cost billing for AWS. 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. Amazon Lightsail has five technologies, and because it's easy to use and everyone can understand it, anyone can manage the server or add anything to that server, making it easy to understand. The initial setup is easy to do.

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Premnath Jaganathan

Product Manager at Uop Ipl

Affordability and security improve our cloud experience while learning new systems

I'm not working with any AI features in IBM Public Cloud, but they are in the process of building it.I am very satisfied with the security that IBM Public Cloud provides. I would rate IBM Public Cloud eight out of ten, where one is worst and ten is the best.

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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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"The initial setup is pretty easy."

"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."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."

"I am very much satisfied with the technical support team at IBM Public Cloud."

"One of the features that I really like about IBM Cloud is the flexibility where you can order your own hardware."

"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."

"An advantage of IBM Public Cloud is the bare metal server. We can take the bare metal server. It's not shared with anyone. We can deploy our applications without sharing them with anyone. That is an advantage of IBM Public Cloud."

"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."

"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."

"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."

More IBM Public Cloud pros

Cons

"The main area for improvement in Lightsail is the difficulty in scaling down resources."

"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."

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

"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."

"The solution could be smoother than it is."

"It would be beneficial if Lightsail allowed easier upgrade and change processes, similar to EC2 instances, without needing to fully back up and reinstall configurations."

"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

"Recently, we just faced some issues with the operating system due to the end of life of CentOS 6...So, then the client wanted to try it out under AWS instead of IBM. In short, it has some complexities."

"The deployment can be a bit of a pain. There are a lot of packages and a lot of options and it can require complex configuration to get it right."

"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."

"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."

"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."

"While they have about 99% of what we need, the only exception, perhaps, was the push notification feature that was discontinued. They delayed the replacement product."

"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."

More IBM Public Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's very cheap."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."

"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."

"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."

"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."

"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."

More IBM Public Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four. The networking layer is basically the hacker's target to break the network, s...

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Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?

IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud?

The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?

The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 33% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 30% of the time

Heroku vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 33% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 30% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

Dell ECS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Public Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud

August 2025

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Also Known As

No data available

IBM Bluemix

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)

IBM Cloud is a full-stack cloud platform that spans public, private and hybrid environments. Build with a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and draw on deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud.

IBM

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. IBM Public Cloud

July 2025

Free Report: Amazon Lightsail vs. IBM Public Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Lightsail vs. IBM Public Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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