Is Amazon LightSail WordPress Hosting Worth It?

I’m an old school tech junkie from way back. Not punch cards way back, but green screen terminals way back. I can’t resist new toys, new technologies, and new idea. However, I’m also practical. As a father, small business owner, and freelance financial writer, my hands are full. So, when it comes to trying out new stuff, being new isn’t enough, it has to be worth the time and effort. Can Amazon Lightsail fit that bill?

Amazon AWS LightSail WordPress Overview

So, the idea behind Lightsail is that there is a straightforward, easy, preconfigured setup of WordPress running on the Amazon AWS platform, or “cloud,” if you prefer. The trade-offs, as always are flexibility and customization versus ease of use. Now, there may be those that disagree, but I think when it comes to WordPress, having something solid and running well doesn’t necessarily require a lot of individual customization.

That being said, it IS important that the server environment itself be setup and customized to handle WordPress well. That’s why services like WP Engine, that offer WordPress optimized plans, are so popular among WordPress developers and publishers.

Assuming the folks at Amazon got the WordPress configuration right — and I’m guessing they did just fine — then the question is would Lightsail be the best WordPress host for my next project, or should I stick with one of my current web hosts?

Let’s do some research.

Amazon AWS Lightsail Comparison

Everyone says they are fast, and unless you’re pulling a bottom tier provider along, running a bargain-basement hosting plan, the raw speed of the bandwidth is probably just fine. So, it comes down to your setup and how the WordPress part runs.

Just for quick grins, I decided to first compare WPEngine’s specs to the LightSail WordPress specs. This isn’t entirely fair. WPEngine’s whole value proposition is that they do a lot of configuration and customization to ensure WordPress runs the best it possibly can on their platform, and Lightsail’s proposition is low-cost and easy, but we have to start somewhere. Besides, if the dedicated WordPress host thinks its base level plan is good enough to host an average WordPress website, then those specs should be good enough to host the same elsewhere, right?

Check out my Ebates review.

The base Ligthsail plan offers:

• 512 MB Memory
• 1 Core Processor
• 20 GB Disk Space
• 1 TB of Bandwidth per Month
• Free Static IP

The base WPEngine plan offers:

• 10 GB of Disk Space
• 50 GB of Bandwidth per Month
• CDN Free
• Automated SSL Certificates
• Staging Environment

Who is better? Again, that isn’t really a fair question, but what I do notice is that WPEngine says that its plan is for up to 25,000 visits per month, and it has approximately half of the bandwidth that the Lightsail base plan has, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that the base Lightsail plan will handle a solid 25K visits.

That is not a huge website, by any stretch of the imagination, but plenty of room for a side project, or a new website you are building up. Plus, unlike WPEngine where the next tier is a significant price increase ($115/mo), although you can host up to 5 sites on it then.

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Amazon Lightsail Review Verdict?

When it comes to choosing the right WordPress web host, a lot of what ends up mattering really can’t be measured by the specifications of the plans. Backups, restores, tech support, and more are all completely unnecessary, until the become completely critical. And, the ongoing usage and maintenance of hosting is another big deal and potential time waster.

But, the only way to find out how it works is to try it out, so I’ll be firing up BrianNelson.pro (a new website that I don’t really have any use for right now other than ranking higher for my own name) over on Amazon Lightsail to give it a try.

If I don’t remember to come back and add a link, just type it in you lazy mutts 🙂