A2 Hosting vs Amazon Lightsail

It’s the service that stores your website's files and makes them available for the world to see on the internet.

Yes. If you want a website, you need a place for it to live online. A hosting plan provides that secure space on our servers.

It’s the most cost-effective way to get online. Your site shares server resources with others, which keeps the price low. It's perfect for personal sites, blogs, and small businesses.

Shared hosting puts your site in its own isolated container on a managed, shared server — you get dedicated CPU and RAM, and we run everything. A managed server gives you the whole box: all the resources are yours, still fully managed by us. Most sites start on shared and move up when they outgrow it — same platform, same team, no re-platforming.

Yes — our plans are built to grow with you. You can upgrade easily and without downtime, all the way from shared hosting to a managed server of your own.

Yes, all plans come with our integrated cPanel email solution, so you can create professional addresses using your domain name.

No. The control panel is intuitive, and Orbi plus our in-house team are on hand 24/7. Developers can still reach advanced tools like SSH, Git integration and custom cron jobs.

Yes. All our plans include robust security features like SSL certificates, DDoS protection, and automated backups to keep your site safe.

Some of our plans do. Just check the features of each plan to see which one fits your needs. check plan specs for the site limit.

These are fully managed servers, which means we take care of all the patching, security updates and server management for you. You'll access everything through cPanel, so you can focus on running your site without worrying about what's happening behind the scenes. And if you ever decide you'd like full root access and direct OS control, our unmanaged dedicated or cloud options would be a perfect fit for that.

On shared hosting, resources are spread across many customers on the same server, so performance can vary depending on what everyone else is doing. With a Managed cPanel Server, all the RAM, CPU and NVMe storage are dedicated entirely to you. You'll still get the same familiar cPanel interface, but with the added benefit of full isolation, predictable performance and resources that are yours alone.

There's no limit on addon domains or websites within a single cPanel account, so you can host as many sites as you need. If you'd prefer separate cPanel logins for different clients or projects, whether that's for isolation, independent quotas or white labelling, you can easily add extra cPanel accounts through autoscale licensing. These are charged at the transparent cPanel pass through rate, so no markups or surprises.

We take care of everything on the server side for you, including initial provisioning and configuration, OS and software patching (cPanel, CloudLinux, Monarx and more), firewall setup and maintenance, 24/7 server level monitoring, daily backup configuration and website migrations. Essentially, we keep the engine running smoothly so you can focus on your sites. Things like application code, CMS plugin updates and content are yours to manage through cPanel, giving you full control over the stuff t

You can upgrade to a larger plan whenever you need to, and we'll handle the entire move for you. No migration headaches on your end.

VPS is an abbreviation for “virtual private server”. A VPS works by dividing a physical server into separate virtual machines. Each of these virtual machines, or virtual private servers, operate completely independently from one another. In other words, each VPS has its own operating system as well as allocation of resources like RAM, CPU and disk space. This provides you with an environment that closely mimics that of a Dedicated Server, without the costs associated with it.

Amazon Lightsail is a virtual private server (VPS) provider and is the easiest way to get started with AWS for developers, small businesses, students, and other users who need a solution to build and host their applications on cloud. Lightsail provides developers compute, storage, and networking capacity and capabilities to deploy and manage websites and web applications in the cloud. Lightsail includes everything you need to launch your project quickly – virtual machines, containers, databases,

A virtual private server, also known as an "instance", allows users to run websites and web applications in a highly secure and available environment, while being cost effective.

There are many benefits to using a virtual private server, including affordability, scalability, security, and customizable resources.

You can choose among several preconfigured VPS plans that include everything you need to easily deploy and manage your application. Lightsail is best suited for projects that require a few virtual private servers and users who prefer a simple management interface. Common use cases for Lightsail include running websites, web applications, blogs, e-commerce sites, simple software, and more.

Also referred to as a bundle, a Lightsail plan includes a virtual private server with a fixed amount of memory (RAM) and compute (vCPUs), SSD-based storage (disks), and a data transfer allowance. Lightsail plans also offer static IP addresses (5 per account) and DNS management (6 domain zones per account). Lightsail plans are charged on an hourly, on-demand basis, so you only pay for a plan when you're using it.

As Lightsail expands its availability across more Regions, we’re evolving our infrastructure to provide a better overall customer experience. As a result, plans in certain Regions will have different specifications, such as an additional vCPU, compared to plans in other Regions.

A Lightsail instance is a virtual private server (VPS) that lives in the AWS Cloud. Use your Lightsail instances to store your data, run your code, and build web-based applications or websites. Your instances can connect to each other and to other AWS resources through both public (Internet) and private (VPC) networking. You can create, manage, and connect easily to instances right from the Lightsail console.

Lightsail offers a range of operating system and application templates that are automatically installed when you create a new Lightsail instance. Application templates include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, Ghost, Magento, Redmine, LAMP, Nginx (LEMP), MEAN, Node.js, Django, and more. You can install additional software on your instances by using the in-browser SSH or your own SSH client.

After logging in to Lightsail, you can use the Lightsail console, command line interface (CLI), or API to create and manage instances. The first time you log in to the console, choose Create Instance. The create instance page is where you can choose the software, location, and name for your instance. Once you choose Create, your new instance will spin up automatically within minutes.

Yes. Everything you do in the Lightsail console is backed by a publicly available API. Learn how to install and use the Lightsail CLI and API.

To start using Lightsail, choose Get Started and log in. You use your Amazon Web Services account to access Lightsail; if you don't already have one, you'll be prompted to create one.

Lightsail instances are specifically engineered by AWS for web servers, developer environments, and small database use cases. Such workloads don't use the full CPU often or consistently, but occasionally need a performance burst. Lightsail uses burstable performance instances that provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the additional ability to burst above the baseline. This design enables you to get the performance you need, when you need it, while protecting you from the variable per

Lightsail offers a 1-click secure connection to your instance's terminal right 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, click Connect using SSH or Connect using RDP, and a new browser window opens and automatically connects to your instance. If you prefer to connect to your Linux/Unix-based instance using your own client, Lightsa

Each Lightsail instance automatically gets a private IP address and a public IP address. You can use the private IP to transmit data between Lightsail instances and AWS resources privately, for free. You can use the public IP to connect to your instance from the Internet, such as through a registered domain name or through an SSH or RDP connection from your local computer. You can also attach a static IP to the instance, which substitutes the public IP with an IP address that doesn't change even

A static IP is a fixed, public IP that is dedicated to your Lightsail account. You can assign a static IP to an instance, replacing its public IP. If you decide to replace your instance with another one, you can reassign the static IP to the new instance. In this way, you don't have to reconfigure any external systems (like DNS records) to point to a new IP every time you want to replace your instance.