Amazon Lightsail vs Microsoft Azure comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.2% mindshare in PSP, compared to Microsoft’s 15.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Amazon Lightsail

Read 13 Amazon Lightsail reviews

1,219 Views
1,219 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure

Read 323 Microsoft Azure reviews

19,268 Views
11,175 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Amazon Lightsail

Microsoft Azure

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Microsoft Azure and Amazon Lightsail operate in the cloud computing and hosting domain. Azure holds a competitive edge due to its extensive range of features, integration capabilities, and scalability that cater to both large enterprises and smaller projects.

Features: Microsoft Azure offers significant benefits like compatibility with Azure Databricks for data processing, robust infrastructure for security with Azure Application Gateway and WAF, and diverse integration options including Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. Azure's presence across numerous geographical zones further bolsters its reliability. Amazon Lightsail stands out with its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, particularly targeting small-scale projects or WordPress hosting with clear pricing and ease of management.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure can enhance user navigation, license model clarity, and consistent technical support. It also faces challenges in cost transparency and needs improved data analysis and streaming support. Amazon Lightsail would benefit from better scalability and more flexible configuration options, along with expanding its network features and improving documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure facilitates flexible deployment across on-premises, public, hybrid, and private clouds, with varying technical support depending on user tier. Azure partners contribute to a generally responsive customer service. Amazon Lightsail is praised for straightforward deployment on public cloud infrastructure, offering a streamlined process at reduced costs but should enhance its support response times.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure's complex pricing model can be higher than competitors, impacting predictability but its scalable resources deliver a good ROI, especially for enterprises integrated into Microsoft environments. Amazon Lightsail provides predictable, flat-rate low-cost services attractive to small businesses, allowing significant savings with a seamless transition to broader AWS services if needed. Pricing for Lightsail packages starts at $5 per month.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Lightsail vs. Microsoft Azure Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Microsoft Azure

February 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Lightsail

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

323

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Amazon Lightsail is 2.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure is 15.2%, down from 20.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure	15.2%
Amazon Lightsail	2.2%
Other	82.6%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

VictorAugusto De Souza E Silva

Cloud Engineer at Leek Solucoes

Has simplified website migration and reduced hosting costs significantly

Amazon Lightsail should have some kind of scale service. To be more clear, if I need to scale up my instance or VPS, I need to create a snapshot and create a new instance from this snapshot with more resources, such as CPU, RAM, or disk. It would be beneficial to have a welcome instance where we can just set the instance, go there to edit and select a greater instance from large to x-large or 2x-large. I do not see the need to scale down, but it would be good too. When we are on an x-large for testing purposes and need to do a rollback to a large one, we need to scale down. We do not have this capability on Amazon Lightsail.

Read full review

Syed Abid

Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra

Versatile integrations and reliable customer satisfaction elevate cloud service experience

For Microsoft Azure improvement, they need to enhance their support system. The first level of support should be improved in terms of quality and response time. They need more technical support at the first level, as there are currently only one or two technical people among five to ten staff members at this level. They should ensure that the first level support is more technical because we normally provide services to technical users ourselves. When an issue arises, it usually escalates to the second or third level. When facing first level support, they may have limited knowledge and only collect screenshots to forward to their seniors. They should ensure that the first level support is aligned with L2 and L3 to better assist us, especially since we mention in the ticket that our issues are related to specific problems and require that sort of support.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed."

"We use Amazon Lightsail for hosting security components in-house and AI modules."

"One of the product's most valuable features is its fixed pricing, which makes it ideal for small projects and websites that do not require scaling."

"The instances optimized for WordPress are very lightweight and straightforward in configuration."

"The intuitive management console of Amazon Lightsail is very good because it is simple; with just a few clicks, I can set a blog online, a WordPress blog online, a new e-commerce online, or just a new application with NodeJS."

"The benefit of using Amazon Lightsail over the AWS console management is that it is a small platform that is easy to understand, as it has only the instance, DNS, Route 53, snapshots, backups, and load balancing network."

"Amazon Lightsail is a virtual instance that is a service of Amazon AWS, designed to store data securely and provide applications through the cloud at an affordable cost to the SME sector."

More Amazon Lightsail pros

"Technical support has been extremely helpful."

"The best features of Microsoft Azure are the interface and the ease of use of that interface, which is very friendly."

"The most valuable features are the interface and customizability."

"The cycle development time is pretty fast, and there's very good coupling within the whole set of Microsoft tools, from database to the ETL engine, ingestion through Azure Data Factory, then modeling Synapse Analytics, and reporting through Power BI."

"The performance of Azure DevOps services is really impressive."

"The product has been very stable for us so far."

"Azure is a good networking solution from a WAN perspective."

"Power BI has been my experience, and there is no question about that; it comes with an integrated platform now with Fabric coming in, and the level of convenience is extremely high as compared to any other tool, integrating with your data sources and with your current reporting tool."

More Microsoft Azure pros

Cons

"Currently, there is limited support available while installing or configuring it, and resources are primarily available through community-contributed articles."

"Amazon Lightsail should have some kind of scale service. To be more clear, if I need to scale up my instance or VPS, I need to create a snapshot and create a new instance from this snapshot with more resources, such as CPU, RAM, or disk."

"Amazon Lightsail needs more security in the networking because hackers can attack in application layers three and four."

"When you need to add some custom rules to Amazon Lightsail, the auto scaling feature is a bit difficult."

"I don't see this solution as enterprise-ready, for bigger companies like banks."

"The solution could be smoother than it is."

"The main area for improvement in Lightsail is the difficulty in scaling down resources."

More Amazon Lightsail cons

"The tool should add an interface that is similar to AWS."

"They should optimize their pricing so that we can use more features. I would also like to see more auditing and more security for the Blob storage feature. From a technical point, it has very good features for Microsoft products, but for non-Microsoft products, it may have some limitations. I have mostly worked with Windows-based integration, and now I am trying to use it for open-source systems. It is good but not as easy as Microsoft products."

"I don't understand why we spend so much time and money on Azure when Microsoft relies on third-party companies for support in the CSP model. I don't know how the support model works within Microsoft, but giving it to poor-performing third-party companies is not ideal."

"We have faced some issues on the pricing side, but it has improved lately. We are trying to adjust to the new pricing methods that they are using now. It should be better from now on."

"The technical support is good, but the response time is poor."

"There are times when using a service in Microsoft Azure can be confusing because you have four or five options that do similar operations. It would be helpful if there was a clear decision tree around those features. Microsoft does provide a lot of decision trees around a lot of their services, but it's not for everything."

"Microsoft Azure needs to improve its customization capabilities. Each organization has unique tasks and fields that it wants to use. Additionally, the search functionality could be more flexible."

"The solution is too expensive."

More Microsoft Azure cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The services that it provides are good for the price."

"Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month."

"A few months ago, Lightsail's pricing increased, likely due to the addition of the new VPC feature."

"Amazon Lightsail is a bit cheaper than Amazon EC2."

"The affordability of starting at five dollars makes it an attractive option for startups and medium-sized companies, aligning with budget considerations while offering essential cloud services."

"The prices are better than EC2 machines, for instance, because they are simplified management, but it works well, and I am able to run everything that I need on it."

"It's very cheap."

"Its price can be cheaper. Price is always an issue. We pay around $10,000 per month for all resources."

"We pay our bill in a monthly or 6 monthly billing cycle. The cost depends on how much you use during the period."

"There is a license for the solution."

"The price of the solution can be expensive."

"The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"Microsoft always provides the entry-level solution with a cheap license. Once you start to like the product, then you have to pay for the full package, which is more expensive than the entry-level solution. Every feature comes with a license and a cost. Some licenses have multiple features, and some features require a specific license."

"One piece of feedback from other users I have heard from is that Azure is somewhat expensive, so I would advise anyone thinking about this solution to be aware of the cost. You need to take into account the configuration you are going with or it could turn out to be a more expensive solution than you anticipated."

"I am currently on a pay-as-you-go subscription and my customers are going to be on a three-year contract. For what is offered in the three-year package it is quite reasonably priced."

More Microsoft Azure pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user8586

Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Aug 14, 2013

Amazon vs Rackspace vs Microsoft vs Google: Cloud Hosting Services Comparison

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

University

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	140
Midsize Enterprise	53
Large Enterprise	150

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Lightsail?

In Lightsail, they simplified to do it in as few clicks as possible. So, around ten clicks, I have a virtual machine deployed.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Lightsail?

Lightsail is available at an affordable cost starting from five dollars per month. This cost may increase with additional features like a static IP.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon Lightsail?

See all answers

Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?

IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...

See all answers

Which is better - SAP Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure?

One of the best features of SAP Cloud Platform is that it is web-based and you can log in from anywhere in the world. SAP Cloud Platform is suitable for companies of any size; it works well with bo...

See all answers

How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?

I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 21% of the time

Google App Engine vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 10% of the time

Render vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 9% of the time

AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs Amazon Lightsail

Compared 8% of the time

More Amazon Lightsail Competitors

Alibaba Cloud vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Microsoft Azure

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail

January 2026

Download Amazon Lightsail product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure product report

Also Known As

No data available

Windows Azure, Azure, MS Azure

Overview

Lightsail is ideal for simpler workloads, quick deployments, and getting started on AWS. It’s designed to help you start small, and then scale as you grow.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft Azure integrates services and offers flexibility, ensuring compatibility with diverse environments. Its scalability, security, and cost-efficient features enhance deployment and management, making it ideal for infrastructure services and application hosting.

Azure provides a comprehensive suite of tools for application deployment, virtual machine management, and data analytics. It allows seamless integration with Power BI and offers a user-friendly interface supported by detailed documentation and technical support. Though users appreciate its capabilities, they sometimes face challenges with costs, setup, and interface complexity, alongside integration and performance issues. Frequent updates and a learning curve are also noted, though Azure's cloud-based security and scalability remain critical for disaster recovery and business continuity.

What are Azure's key features?

Integrated Services: Ensures compatibility with Microsoft and non-Microsoft environments.
Scalability: Supports growing business demands with flexible computing power.
Security: Offers robust cloud-based security features for data protection.
Cost Efficiency: Provides options that optimize costs for diverse requirements.
Application Deployment: Facilitates quick rollout of apps and services.

What benefits should users expect from Azure?

Operational Optimization: Allows companies to streamline processes effectively.
Innovative Efficiency: Empowers businesses to innovate with powerful tools.
Reliable Support: Backed by strong technical support and comprehensive documentation.
Flexible Cloud Solutions: Offers a range of options for cloud migrations and infrastructure management.

Microsoft Azure is widely implemented in industries like financial services, healthcare, and logistics for hosting enterprise applications and vital services. Companies utilize its capabilities for IoT applications, DevOps, and Kubernetes clusters, benefiting from its cloud migrations, data analytics, and active directory support.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

BMW, Toyota, easyJet, NBC Sports, HarperCollins, Aviva, TalkTalk Business, Avanade, and Telenor.

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Lightsail vs. Microsoft Azure

February 2026

Free Report: Amazon Lightsail vs. Microsoft Azure

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