Building and hosting applications using AWS Lightsail?

Published in

AVM Consulting Blog

6 min readJun 8, 2022

AWS or Amazon Lightsail is a new kind of VPS (Virtual Private Service). It was made on the concept of easing up some businesses. Consider an instance where you might know that every business runs behind an idea and that idea grows exponentially if it is driven smoothly.

What is VPS?

Virtual Private Server or VPS is a representation of a software server that lets users access to computable resources for a piece of job or a task while remaining abstracted or hidden from the physical server layer. Each VPS is powered to be independently functional of a physical layer and lets its users set up Lightsail because it is usually not visible through AWS management console without a virtual private server. There are generally two types of virtual private servers namely:

Managed VPS: It allows its clients to worry much about “what” rather than “how” of managing the resources required in a full-scaled front-end application. This VPS can come along with AWS to manage the abstract laying infrastructure needed for a job or set of tasks a user wants to execute on VPS.

Unmanaged VPS: This allows the VPS to carry out a simple hosting experience where the client is responsible for managing all the tasks like configuring it, and installing and updating the software.

What is AWS Lightsail?

AWS Lightsail is a Virtual Private Server or so-called VPS popularly that offers various templates to choose to range from a plain OS to a power-packed application and implement it using only a click of the button.

So, there is no need of worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Just launch the application, and start building your idea, it’s that simple!

Why AWS Lightsail?

We might have dozens of companies providing great cloud services but why opt for AWS Lightsail? Consider an instance to understand why. Suppose, a person is planning to start a business and have a great idea but is not equipped well with the resources which might not result in him earning profits at the cost of what he expects.

Users and Service

Consider the blogger example that we discussed earlier. We may adopt a WordPress configured system and for that, we can make use of the WordPress logo from the Create Instance dashboard. Then we can select the hosting service with the desired plan and we are all set to move ahead.

Moreover, with the AWS Lightsail, the general tasks like installation, configuration, and scaling from the technical side can be automatically served and there’s no need for auto-scaling because the system does it right away.

The next instance that is taken care of by AWS Lightsail whenever we click on the Create Instance button, the following actions take place:

Launch the Virtual Machine.
Attach the Solid State Drive (SSD).
Management of IAM is done.
Various Security Groups are created.
Domain Name Server (DNS) is set up.
Static IP is created.

Features of AWS Lightsail

To understand what separates AWS Lightsail from all other Automatic Services like Lambda, OpsWorks and Beanstalk consider the below points that justify the same:

Auto-scaling: It is limited to Lightsail because a user can’t increase capacity. Other services like Beanstalk and Lambda can be easily scaled. The only way to auto-scale Lightsail is by changing the existing plan and the resources and features will automatically be adjusted once billed.

Fixed Cost: AWS Lightsail the price is fixed no matter whether a user uses its features for a short span or long unlike other services where the user pays according to the usage of resources.

Configuration: In other services like Op works and Lambda, the user holds the complete configuration control. He can create stacks and gradually configure layers. This is not the case with Lightsail. Lightsail is not a complicated system like others rather it is a simple system that offers nothing to configure.

Let’s now analyze and embrace the difference in terms of capital it costs to its users. Consider the below image which shows an approx estimation of cost per service offered by Lightsail.

For Windows:

For Linux:

Benefits of AWS Lightsail

Some of the core benefits of Lightsail are enlisted below:

Simple UI: Lightsail runs under the hood of pre-installed software. The UI offers less confusion for the user who is using it for the very first time.

Adaptability: Organizations or developers find Lightsail very alluring because its mainframe and backend are much less difficult to handle, unlike others where the user needs to self-configure the assets.

Affordability: Lightsail perhaps offers the cheapest subscription is $5 for a month and also free for the first month.

Environment: Since AWS powers all the hardcore assets of Lightsail, it is massively supported by all kinds of applications.

Reliability: There exists a very rare case of replacement when one is running its services powered by Lightsail and this is the main reason why is considered highly dependable.

Launching Lightsail

Let’s now proceed by creating our very own Lightsail instance channeling through a simple WordPress configured site. Consider the below steps that will help us to understand how to create or launch a Lightsail instance.

1. Log in to the Amazon Management Console, find and select Amazon Lightsail.

1. Click on the Create Instance button.

2. We have certain choices to select from the list shown in the image below but since we are working with WordPress, we will select it.

3. We will now consider various options which the first option is selected because it offers a free tier subscription for free for a month.

4. Virginia Zone is automatically selected since it is the only option available as of now.

5. We can now easily rename our instance and then click on Create.

6. It might take some time to create the instance and the following window would appear.

7. This window will mark the successful creation of our instance.

Summary

In this article, we came across various aspects of AWD Lightsail and discovered it from the roots. We also learned about VPS which is nothing but the remote services offered by Amazon to empower Lightsail.