Every business runs behind an idea, and this is the key factor of success for any businesses worldwide. The quicker you implement the idea; the better it would be for your business.

What is Amazon Lightsail?

Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) that bundles compute, storage, networking, and DNS. It also has built-in capabilities that include a managed database, load balancer, support for containers and a content delivery network (CDN).

Still, this simplicity comes with trade-offs. Amazon EC2 opens the door to far more ways to build, deploy and manage applications. It also remains the dominant AWS offering, alongside Amazon S3. But, for a subset of users, Lightsail will be the better fit.

Amazon Lightsail is for businesses that want to spin up a server without having to work through all the pricing, configuration and management details associated with a typical AWS deployment.

What is Amazon EC2?

EC2 Instance is a virtual server in Amazon web services terminology. EC2 means Elastic compute cloud where an AWS subscriber can add or provision a computer server in the AWS cloud. This is an on-demand EC2 instance offered by the AWS where the virtual server can be rented by subscribers on an hourly basis and use the same for application deployment.

With Amazon EC2 Instance, you can configure multiple virtual servers together, add the security or network settings, and manage the storage. It helps you to develop or deploy apps much faster than your expectations. It allows you to scale up based on business needs and provides you with the ability to handle varied needs of your business as well.

Why use Lightsail?

Now, to begin with, let’s say, you are a blogger & have an amazing business idea but when you started exploring, you realize that WordPress should be connected with the MySQL server.

So, when you start configuring it for the server, you get engaged in multiple activities like WordPress configuration, configuring MySQL for WordPress, DNS configuration etc. Along the way, you realize that you are diverted from the actual idea of blogging and got badly stuck with the server management operations. So now don’t panic here. There are many AWS cloud services to save you.

Using Lightsail service here is suggested. You don’t have to worry about the underlying infrastructure, just launch your application and start building your idea directly. It helps to jumpstart your project that includes almost everything like DNS configuration, data transfer, static IP, data storage, security groups etc. The best part is that everything can be availed at very affordable prices. However, the service is not ideal for applications that require a highly configurable environment or consistently high CPU performance, such as video encoding or analytics.

Why use Amazon EC2?

To do the same thing in EC2, you would need to provision the instance, add Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) block storage or Amazon S3 object storage, provision the image, and then configure all the different resources and applications.

Let’s start!! Amazon Lightsail Vs. Amazon EC2

Compute & Storage: If you want granularity and a massive range of configuration options, go with EC2. Lightsail’s solid-state drive (SSD) disk sizes range from 20 GB to 640 GB. You have far more flexibility with EC2, but in most cases, you need to sort out the attached instance storage separately through EBS. With Lightsail, all that is preconfigured.

Plus, if you ever outgrow your VPS instance or need more control, you can take a snapshot and export it to a new instance in EC2.

Databases: Lightsail managed databases don’t provide the same level of performance or throughput that larger databases, such as MongoDB or Cassandra, might require. EC2 instances with provisioned IOPS SSD storage are a better option than Lightsail in these cases. Lightsail can work with other AWS database offerings. It supports Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Relational Database Service and Amazon Aurora, but you may need to peer to a separate Amazon Virtual Private Cloud to make it work.

Stopping the instances: It is possible to stop and start an instance in both cloud services either EC2 or Lightsail. In practice, AWS still charges for Lightsail instance when an instance is stopped. At the same time, AWS does not charge anything for EC2 instance when it is stopped. 

When we look at the process, Lightsail costs are built on the top of EC2. Enterprises can save money when plan the compute, storage, and networking requirements with EC2. Further, AWS offers the best tools and services to backup or spin up or down EC2 servers. But Lightsail can be the best choice for individual or departmental apps that run for a longer time span. Other services make more sense when a company is first exploring or testing out various applications.

Layots has 20+ years of unmatched experience in IT management. Our solutions offer speed, agility, and efficiency to tackle business challenges in the areas of service management, automation, and operations. So if you are investigating to migrate your business to cloud, Layots can help you to review your options and architect a system that works best for your organization. To know more about this solution, PING US !!!