AWS EC2 vs AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | AWS EC2 | AWS Lightsail | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $5.00/mo | — |
| Compute | $0.042/vCPU-hr | — | — |
| Data transfer out | $0.090/GB | $0.090/GB | Same |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | — |
Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | AWS EC2 | AWS Lightsail | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $39 | $5.00 | AWS Lightsailsaves $34/mo (87%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $151 | $10 | AWS Lightsailsaves $141/mo (93%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $930 | $725 | AWS Lightsailsaves $205/mo (22%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
AWS EC2
by Amazon Web Services
On-demand instances across every region and instance family. List rates are the highest in this category on both compute and egress; reserved instances and savings plans are how the price actually comes down.
Free tier: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months
AWS Lightsail
by Amazon Web Services
Amazon's flat-rate answer to DigitalOcean, bundling generous transfer into a fixed monthly price. Overage reverts to standard EC2 egress rates, which is where it stops being cheap.
Free tier: Three months free on the smallest plan
Common questions
- Is AWS EC2 or AWS Lightsail cheaper in 2026?
- AWS Lightsail is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- Which has the better free tier, AWS EC2 or AWS Lightsail?
- Both publish one. AWS EC2: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months. AWS Lightsail: Three months free on the smallest plan.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.