Disclosure: we may earn a commission or referral reward from CloudCone, Contabo, DigitalOcean (account credit, not cash), Hostwinds, InterServer, RackNerd, VPSDime and Vultr if you sign up through our links. It does not change the price you pay. Every other provider pays us nothing.
AWS Lightsail vs Vultr
Vultr starts $1.50 per month cheaper at the entry tier. Vultr lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. AWS Lightsail is the better pick for teams who want AWS on the invoice and a plausible growth path, at Droplet prices for the first year.
AWS Lightsail
$5.00/mo entry
Teams who want AWS on the invoice and a plausible growth path, at Droplet prices for the first year.
Vultr
$3.50/mo entry
Latency-sensitive projects that need a specific city, and price-driven builders comfortable alone.
New Vultr accounts opened through our link get $300 of credit to use within 30 days. A card or PayPal is required; duplicate accounts are not eligible. Vultr pays us a referral fee if you stay a paying customer.
Specification differences
Entry plans compared line by line. Rows marked with a dash are preferences rather than measurable wins, so we do not pick a side on them.
| Attribute | AWS Lightsail | Vultr | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month | $5.00 | $3.50 | Vultr |
| Entry plan vCPU | 2 | 1 | AWS Lightsail |
| Entry plan RAM | 0.5 GB | 0.5 GB | |
| Entry plan storage | 20 GB | 10 GB | AWS Lightsail |
| Included transfer | 1 TB | 0.5 TB | AWS Lightsail |
| Listed regions | 20 | 32 | Vultr |
| Management model | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | AWS Basic Support included; paid Developer/Business tiers via the parent account. | Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price for the bundle. | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | |
| Free tier | AWS says you can get started with Lightsail for free under the AWS Free Tier, but its pricing page names no bundle or duration. Check the Free Tier terms before counting on it. | No free tier. |
Same size, side by side
The cheapest plan from each provider that meets each size, so the comparison is between equal servers rather than two entry plans. Prices include a separately-billed IPv4 address where the provider charges for one.
| Size | AWS Lightsail | Vultr | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $7.00General 1GB · 2 vCPU · 1 GB · 40 GBModest RAM but the bundled transfer runs ahead of DigitalOcean and Vultr at the same tier. | $5.00Regular 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry plan with a public IPv4 address and 1GB of RAM. | Vultr cheaper by $2.00 |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $24.00General 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBStraight lift of the DigitalOcean 4GB tier, on AWS invoicing. | $20.00Regular 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBDirect competitor to the DigitalOcean 4GB Droplet, priced below it. | Vultr cheaper by $4.00 |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $84.00General 16GB · 4 vCPU · 16 GB · 320 GBFirst general bundle with four vCPUs. | $40.00Regular 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBFour cores at a lower list price than most rivals here. | Vultr cheaper by $44.00 |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $164.00General 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight vCPUs; double the 16GB bundle for a little under double the price. | $160.00Regular 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight shared cores and 32GB on the Regular Performance line. | Vultr cheaper by $4.00 |
Every provider at these sizes, ranked: 1 GB RAM · 4 GB RAM · 8 GB RAM · 16 GB RAM
Where each one wins and loses
AWS Lightsail
Lightsail is Amazon’s answer to the DigitalOcean-style Droplet: a small set of flat-priced instances with a simplified console, bundled with the option to graduate onto the rest of AWS once you need a VPC, load balancer or IAM policy. The public-IPv4 bundles include a fixed monthly transfer allowance and there is a cheaper IPv6-only tier for people who can live without an IPv4 address. The catch is that the AWS Console’s reputation for complexity is not entirely fair to Lightsail, but the moment you outgrow it you inherit that complexity.
Strengths
- Flat monthly pricing with generous bundled transfer
- One-click upgrade path onto the wider AWS platform when you need it
- IPv6-only bundles a few dollars cheaper than the equivalent IPv4 tier
- Backed by AWS operational track record
Weaknesses
- Smaller-plan RAM and disk lag the budget-cloud peer group at the same price
- Add-ons like snapshots, load balancers and managed databases are billed separately
- Support is AWS-style ticket support, not developer chat
- Graduating to full AWS surfaces the complexity Lightsail was meant to hide
Support: AWS Basic Support included; paid Developer/Business tiers via the parent account.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price for the bundle.
Free tier: AWS says you can get started with Lightsail for free under the AWS Free Tier, but its pricing page names no bundle or duration. Check the Free Tier terms before counting on it.
Vultr
Vultr competes on footprint and price rather than on hand-holding. It lists more data-centre locations than any other cloud server provider we track, which matters if latency to a specific city is your binding constraint. The trade-off is a thinner documentation library and a support experience aimed at people who already know what a kernel panic is.
Strengths
- Largest region list here, including several markets rivals do not cover
- High Frequency instances put NVMe and faster clocks at a low price point
- Hourly billing with no minimum commitment
Weaknesses
- Unmanaged, with noticeably less tutorial content than DigitalOcean
- Support is functional rather than educational
- Cheapest plans are IPv6-only in some regions - check before you commit
Support: Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No free tier.
The full cost stack
What a server costs beyond its sticker price, shown for 2 vCPU / 4 GB. Only figures read from each provider's own documentation appear; a gap says “not captured yet”.
| Item | AWS Lightsail | Vultr |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $24.00 | $20.00 |
| Automatic backups | not captured yet | 20% = +$4.00 ($24.00 total) |
| Outbound traffic beyond the allowance | $0.09/GB over allowance | $0.01/GB over allowance |
| Smallest managed load balancer | $18.00/mo | $10.00/mo |
Sources: aws.amazon.com · docs.vultr.com · docs.vultr.com · www.vultr.com
Price changes we have logged
No tracked price change for either provider yet.
Full record at the change log.
Every plan
The complete plan ladders, with the date and source of every price, are on each provider's page: AWS Lightsail and Vultr.
All figures are the providers' own published list prices in USD, on-demand monthly. The index was last refreshed 2026-10-14, and every row shows the date its own price was read. Nothing here is live or negotiated pricing. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Some prices exclude VAT or need a commitment; the plan notes say which. Check the provider's pricing page before you commit.
Related comparisons
Where both sell
AWS Lightsail and Vultr both have data centres in these places. Each page ranks every provider there at the price charged in that location.
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AWS Lightsail vs Vultr — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- Which is cheaper for 1 vCPU / 1 GB, AWS Lightsail or Vultr?
- Vultr Regular 1GB at $5.00/mo, which is $2.00 (29%) less than AWS Lightsail General 1GB at $7.00/mo.
- How many datacentre locations do AWS Lightsail and Vultr have?
- AWS Lightsail lists 20 and Vultr lists 32.
- What do backups add at AWS Lightsail and Vultr?
- AWS Lightsail: not captured yet; Vultr: 20% of the plan price.