How is Amazon Lightsail cheaper than Amazon EC2?

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Okay, I don't really now where to post this question.. It wasn't received well on SO so I am trying here.

There is only one apparently abstract upside of using Lightsail, simplicity, or significantly simplified interface.

Also, the first page of Lightsail talks about lower charges. My question is how is it considered to reduce charges compared to EC2? Consider $5 Lightsail plan which charges $0.0067/hour of an instance (which is the cheapest) where EC2's same type of instance (t2.nano) costs just $0.0059/hour.

What am I missing? A detailed price comparison would be much appreciated showing how Lightsail costs lower as advertised.

Aakash Verma

Posted 2017-06-28T04:17:16.090

Reputation: 141

Question was closed 2017-06-30T05:48:12.293

1This question is out of scope here at Superuser. – Ramhound – 2017-06-28T04:40:37.417

Answers

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The smallest Lightsail instance actually is a t2.nano ($4.39) with a 20 GiB EBS volume ($2.00) and up to 1 terabyte of outbound data transfer ($90.00), priced at $5.00.

$5.00 is a substantially lower cost than $96.39.

Assuming only 100 gigabytes of outbound data transfer, $5.00 is still significantly less than $15.39.

Or 10 gigabytes, it's still lower, $5.00 < $7.29.

Michael - sqlbot

Posted 2017-06-28T04:17:16.090

Reputation: 1 103

Thanks but isn't there some kind of free data transfer and storage options available in EC2 also? Thank you for that 10 GiB value comparison! – Aakash Verma – 2017-06-28T05:20:07.747

Everything in EC2 is pay-as-you-go, except for the 12 month introductory free tier, which includes your first 750 hours of t2.micro, your first 30 GiB EBS (total, not per volume) and your first 15 GiB of outbound data each month across all AWS services. – Michael - sqlbot – 2017-06-28T06:48:52.023

Yes, I got to realise that Lightsail is made for VPSs and not for simple computing although EC2 has provisions for pretty much everything. That is since I will have a server with web apps on it so I 'd be having some noticeable data transfers and so it becomes advisable to go for Lightsail then... So that means there is some other significance apart from its simplicity, isn't it? – Aakash Verma – 2017-06-28T07:25:20.880

Just one last question, so there's no way I can make the free tier of EC2 last after one year or use Lightsail for free after the first month using the same Amazon account? – Aakash Verma – 2017-06-28T07:26:55.657

My guess is AWS assumes most Lightsail customers will use less than the full capacity, plus AWS probably take a reduced margin. No, you can't extend the free period for your account beyond the times you mention - 1 year is very generous. I pay $10/month to AWS for a small server and quite a lot of storage. It's good value. – Tim – 2017-07-06T20:14:28.563

2@Tim, I agree that the free tier is generous, but I think you might have misinterpreted the question -- it's asking why Lightsail claims to be a lower cost offering than EC2 since it didn't appear that way when comparing the Lightsail price to the equivalent t2 class, a conclusion that was premised on an incomplete understanding of what the Lightsail VPS price includes that the EC2 instance price doesn't include (an EBS volume and outbound bandwidth). – Michael - sqlbot – 2017-07-06T22:45:13.843

Asked: 2017-06-28T04:17:16.090

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Active: 2017-06-28T04:44:19.503