What is Amazon Lightsail?
Amazon Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) provider that is the simplest way for developers, small businesses, students, and other users to get started with AWS. Lightsail provides developers with compute, storage, and networking capacity and capabilities for cloud-based website and web application deployment and management. Lightsail includes everything you need to get your project up and running quickly, including virtual machines, containers, databases, CDN, load balancers, and DNS management, all for a low, predictable monthly fee.
What is a Virtual Private Server?
A virtual private server, also known as a "instance," enables users to run websites and web applications in a cost-effective and highly secure environment.
What are the benefits of a VPS?
A virtual private server has numerous advantages, including affordability, scalability, security, and customizable resources.
What can I do with Lightsail?
You can select from a number of preconfigured VPS plans that include everything you need to quickly deploy and manage your application. Lightsail is best suited for projects requiring a small number of virtual private servers and users who prefer a simple management interface. Lightsail is commonly used to run websites, web applications, blogs, e-commerce sites, simple software, and other applications.
What is a Lightsail instance plan?
A Lightsail plan, also known as a bundle, includes a virtual private server with a set amount of memory (RAM) and compute (vCPUs), SSD-based storage (discs), and a data transfer allowance. Static IP addresses (5 per account) and DNS management are also included in Lightsail plans (3 domain zones per account). Lightsail plans are charged hourly and on-demand, so you only pay for them when you use them.
Are Lightsail plans the same across AWS Regions?
We are evolving our infrastructure to provide a better overall customer experience as Lightsail expands its availability across more Regions. As a result, plans in some regions will have different specifications, such as an extra vCPU, than plans in others.
What is a Lightsail instance?
A Lightsail instance is an AWS Cloud-based virtual private server (VPS). Lightsail instances can be used to store data, run code, and create web-based applications or websites. Your instances can communicate with one another and with other AWS resources via public (Internet) and private (VPC) networking. From the Lightsail console, you can easily create, manage, and connect to instances.
What software can I run on my instance?
Lightsail provides a variety of operating system and application templates that are installed automatically when you create a new Lightsail instance. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla! are examples of application templates. , Ghost, Magento, Redmine, LAMP, Nginx (LEMP), MEAN, Node.js, Django, and other applications.
You can install additional software on your instances by using the in-browser SSH or your own SSH client.
How do I create a Lightsail instance?
After logging into Lightsail, you can create and manage instances using the Lightsail console, command line interface (CLI), or API.
When you first log in to the console, select Create Instance. On the create instance page, you can specify the software, location, and name of your instance. When you select Create, your new instance will start up automatically in a matter of minutes.
Does Lightsail offer an API?
Yes. Everything you do in the Lightsail console is supported by a public API. Discover how to set up and use the Lightsail CLI and API.
How do I sign up for Lightsail?
Choose Get Started and log in to begin using Lightsail. Lightsail is accessed through your Amazon Web Services account; if you don't already have one, you'll be prompted to create one.
Lightsail resources
AWS Lightsail instances are designed specifically for web servers, developer environments, and small database use cases. Such workloads do not frequently or consistently require the full CPU, but do require a performance burst on occasion. Lightsail employs burstable performance instances, which provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the option to burst above that level. This design allows you to get the performance you need, when you need it, while shielding you from the variable performance or other common side effects of over-subscription in other environments. Go here for more information on burstable performance.
We recommend using if you require highly configurable environments and instances with consistently high CPU performance for applications such as video encoding or HPC applications.
Lightsail provides a secure connection to your instance's terminal with a single click from your browser, supporting SSH access for Linux/Unix-based instances and RDP access for Windows-based instances. To use 1-click connections, launch your instance management screens, then click Connect using SSH or Connect using RDP. A new browser window opens and connects to your instance automatically.
If you prefer to connect to your Linux/Unix-based instance with your own client, Lightsail will store and manage your SSH keys for you and provide you with a secure key to use in your SSH client.
Each Lightsail instance is assigned both a private and public IP address. You can use the private IP to securely transmit data between Lightsail instances and AWS resources. You can connect to your instance from the Internet using the public IP, such as through a registered domain name or an SSH or RDP connection from your local computer. You can also assign a static IP address to the instance, which replaces the public IP with an address that remains constant even when the instance is stopped and restarted.
A static IP address is a fixed, public IP address that is assigned to your Lightsail account. You can replace an instance's public IP with a static IP address. If you decide to replace your instance, you can reassign the static IP address to the new instance. This eliminates the need to reconfigure any external systems (such as DNS records) to point to a new IP address every time you want to replace your instance.
DNS is a globally distributed service that converts human-readable names such as www.example.com into numeric IP addresses such as 192.0.2.1, which computers use to communicate with one another. You can easily map your registered domain names, such as photos.example.com, to the public IPs of your Lightsail instances using Lightsail. As a result, when users type human-readable names into their browsers, such as example.com, Lightsail automatically translates the address into the IP address of the instance you want to direct your users to. A DNS query is the name given to each of these translations.
It is critical to understand that in order to use a domain in Lightsail, it must first be registered. You can register new domains with Lightsail, Amazon Route 53, or your favourite domain registrar.
Snapshots are snapshots of instances, databases, or block storage discs. You can create a snapshot of your resources at any time, or you can have Lightsail create snapshots for you by enabling automatic snapshots on instances and discs. Snapshots can be used as baselines to create new resources or to backup your data. A snapshot contains all of the information required to restore your resource (from the moment when the snapshot was taken). When you restore a resource from a snapshot, the new resource starts out as an exact replica of the original resource that was used to create the snapshot.
You can take manual snapshots of your Lightsail instances, discs, and databases, or you can use automatic snapshots to tell Lightsail to take daily snapshots of your instances and discs. For more information, see Amazon Lightsail Snapshots.
In which regions is Lightsail available?
Lightsail is currently available in all the Availability Zones in the following AWS Regions:
US East (N. Virginia)
US East (Ohio)
US West (Oregon)
Canada (Central)
Europe (Frankfurt)
Europe (Ireland)
Europe (London)
Europe (Paris)
Europe (Stockholm)
Asia Pacific (Mumbai)
Asia Pacific (Singapore)
Asia Pacific (Sydney)
Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
Asia Pacific (Seoul)
Yes. Amazon Lightsail allows you to collect metrics on various resources such as instances, load balancers, and databases. You can set up to two alarm thresholds for each metric for any individual resource. If the alarm threshold is exceeded, you will receive a notification in the Lightsail console, as well as the option to receive an email and/or SMS message. The alerting and monitoring feature in Lightsail is free; however, you may be charged by your mobile carrier for SMS messaging.