Amazon Lightsail vs. SiteGround

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Lightsail
Score 5.3 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) designed to present an easy-to-use cloud platform that offers everything needed to build an application or website, plus a cost-effective, monthly plan.
$3.50
per month
SiteGround
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
SiteGround offers website hosting, as well as managed WordPress, managed Woo Commerce, fully managed cloud services available to support a variety of services, as well as reselling.
$14.99
per month
Pricing
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Editions & Modules
512 MB Linux
$3.50
per month
1 GB Linux
$5.00
per month
2 GB Linux
$10.00
per month
StartUp 24 months
$14.99
per month
StartUp 12 months
$17.99
per month
StartUp 1 month
$24.99
per month
GrowBig 24 months
$24.99
per month
GrowBig 12 months
$29.99
per month
GrowBig 1 month
$34.99
per month
GoGeek 24 months
$39.99
per month
GoGeek 12 months
$44.99
per month
GoGeek 1 month
$49.99
per month
GoGeek 3 months
$49.99
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Features
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Lightsail
9.1
Ratings
12% above category average
SiteGround
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation9.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 8.7 out of 10
Flywheel
Flywheel
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
WP Engine
WP Engine
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.5 out of 10
AccuWebHosting.Com
AccuWebHosting.Com
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Likelihood to Recommend
9.8
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon LightsailSiteGround
Likelihood to Recommend
It is best suited for the small applications which do not need much CPU powers to executes tasks and when integration with other AWS services but it is less suited for the applications which need very frequent auto scaling for the performance purpose, as AWS Lightsail did not support system downgrading so not recommend to use in this case.
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I used other hosting providers in the past and actually I'm very happy with SiteGround mainly because of this: * very quick to setup and install my Wordpress website * sends me weekly emails about traffic, website healthscore etc * great wordpress plugins to help with SEO and optimizing
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Pros
  • Value instances packages
  • Better organized UI
  • Easy billing resulting in higher efficiency
  • Cheaper than competition
  • Better support staff
  • Can adjust for any bills you may have incurred by accident
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  • You get a number of page views as a guide to your bandwidth, and a fixed amount of disk space on the server. So you know what you have to work with. No hazy promises of “unlimited” resources.
  • If you pay more, you’re allocated a server with fewer accounts, so there’s less chance you’ll be slowed down by your neighbors.
  • Its self-help material is pretty good — close to InMotion Hosting for knowledgebase quality.
  • SiteGround tackles slow speeds from all angles, using SSD storage, Nginx, SuperCacher, CloudFlare CDN, and HHVM.
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Cons
  • Lack of flexibility in terms of configuration
  • Customer service tiers - have to pay more for better service
  • Usage not shown in obvious place
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  • Business model and clarity about prices after the second year
  • Server Performance when it's stressed or under a big volume of traffic
  • Upgrading model. Sometimes I felt like it was mandatory to update and pay more for basic needs, even with low traffic volumes
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Usability
My overall experience with Amazon Lightsail is very good, and the online community of Lightsail users is very large and its helps to resolve any kind of issue i faced on my server. I also like the integration of other AWS services with Amazon Lightsail like we can export our Lightsail instance into ec2 server using snapshots.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Three ways to get customer support, phone, email, and chat. Chat is available 24/7 and the agents are always friendly and very helpful. In all the instances where I needed assistance chat support agents were always available to help. Wait time is minimal and on rare occasions I had to call, the agents were very helpful as well. I can not remember a time I walked away from support without my question or concern being resolved.
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Alternatives Considered
Amazon Lightsail is ideal for beginners looking for a low-cost VPS to try out new things. It's especially useful if you're at a hackathon and need a quick way to prototype a quick idea. I would never recommend Lightsail for any kind of production work. In terms of uptime, Lightsail has proved unreliable. Occasionally, the instance will simply crash or reboot at random. Without warning, Amazon will perform maintenance on your Lightsail instance. Lightsail's networking is likewise lacking, with no support for IPv6.
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GoDaddy and Bluehost offer grossly sub-par performance in 2017 for a price point that doesn't make sense. At least GoDaddy has great tech support - but I shouldn't have to rely on it as often as I do if all was working as it should. inMotion was overly complex on the backend, and lacked some common hosting features (easy WordPress installs for one) that are common across all other hosts. WPEngine, had great performance, and decent support, but their own proprietary backend interface was always a shift when switching between them and cpanel. Also - VERY expensive compared to SiteGround for comparable (if not lesser) service & performance.
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Return on Investment
  • Hosting a production application on Lightsail will guarantee you a loss
  • Saved lots of time for our prototyping
  • Other VPS providers are better
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  • All the sites I've set up at SiteGround are performing faster than they did at their previous hosting provider. This yields a superior customer experience and higher Google/SEO rankings.
  • Their service has been rock solid, necessitating little support (which is admittedly less than ideal for my support business, but a boon for my clients bottom line) and zero downtime.
  • Easy to get new sites up and running, which speeds creation of new businesses and rapid deployment of conceptual campaigns.
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ScreenShots