Compare / AWS Lightsail vs OVHcloud VPS
AWS Lightsail vs OVHcloud VPS
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — AWS Lightsail checked 2026-08-06, OVHcloud checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
AWS Lightsail wins more of our comparison points, but OVHcloud VPS still fits if traffic-heavy European projects that want unmetered bandwidth and an included IPv4 at rock-bottom prices describes you.
Price OVHcloud VPS
OVHcloud VPS is cheaper at most of the stages we model.
Ease AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail is easier to get running: pick a blueprint (WordPress, LAMP, Node.js, plain Linux), get SSH in the browser or your terminal, and manage it like any VPS.
Free tier AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail has a free tier; OVHcloud VPS doesn't.
Features AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail comes out ahead on 3 of the 15 features we track, versus 0.
What developers say about this matchup
We couldn't find a substantive first-person discussion comparing this exact pair. We leave the section empty instead of filling it with vendor marketing or generic SEO comparisons.
At a glance
| AWS Lightsail | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Projects that want predictable AWS — a fixed-price server with a clear upgrade path into the wider AWS ecosystem. | Traffic-heavy European projects that want unmetered bandwidth and an included IPv4 at rock-bottom prices. |
| How deploys work | Pick a blueprint (WordPress, LAMP, Node.js, plain Linux), get SSH in the browser or your terminal, and manage it like any VPS. | You get root on a bare server: pick a distro or an app image (Docker, WordPress, cPanel) and set everything up yourself. |
| The tradeoff | Costs more per spec than the European VPS crowd, and stopped instances keep billing. | Entirely self-managed, headline prices need a commitment, and support below premium tiers is slow. |
| Free tier | 90-day free trial (750 hours/month) on the $5–$12 Linux bundles and the $15 database, plus $100–$200 in new-account AWS credits. | None |
What you'd realistically pay
AWS Lightsail OVHcloud VPS
| Project stage | AWS Lightsail | OVHcloud VPS | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo Nano — 2 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer. $3.50 as IPv6-only. Free for the first 90 days. | ≈€3.81/mo VPS-1 — From-price with commitment. 2 shared vCores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 500 Mbps. | OVHcloud VPS |
| Steady traffic | ≈$12/mo Small — 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer. | ≈€10.40/mo VPS-3 — From-price with commitment. 6 shared vCores, 12 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 2 Gbps. | ≈ Tie |
| Growing | ≈$39/mo Medium + managed database — $24 Medium (4 GB RAM, 4 TB transfer) plus the $15 managed MySQL/PostgreSQL bundle. | ≈€19.96/mo VPS-4 — From-price with commitment. 8 shared vCores, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB NVMe, unlimited traffic at 3 Gbps. | OVHcloud VPS |
AWS Lightsail pricing notes
- Billed hourly up to the monthly cap — partial months cost less, but stopped instances still bill.
- IPv6-only bundles are 20–30% cheaper; an unattached static IPv4 costs ~$3.60/month.
- Bundles scale up to 64 vCPU / 256 GB RAM ($1,764/month), with compute- and memory-optimized variants.
OVHcloud VPS pricing notes
- Prices are ex-VAT "from" prices requiring the longest commitment — month-to-month is noticeably higher.
- Monthly prepaid subscription only; there is no hourly billing on the VPS line.
- Daily backups are included free; snapshots cost from €0.30/month extra.
Our ratings
Ease of use AWS Lightsail
Pricing clarity AWS Lightsail
Free tier AWS Lightsail
Scaling AWS Lightsail
Control
Feature by feature
AWS Lightsail wins 3, OVHcloud VPS wins 0, with 12 even.
Deploy workflow
| AWS Lightsail | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | No Nothing built in. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The AWS CLI covers Lightsail end to end. | Partial Full REST API and Terraform provider; no first-class official CLI like hcloud or doctl. |
| Instant rollbacks | Partial Snapshots restore machines ($0.05/GB-month); no deploy-level rollback. | Partial Included daily backups and paid snapshots restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| AWS Lightsail | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Lightsail DNS zones are included; TLS is yours via certbot or a Lightsail distribution. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Yes Lightsail distributions add a CloudFront-backed CDN from $2.50/month (first year of 50 GB/month free). | Partial OVHcloud sells a separate CDN product; nothing is integrated with the VPS. |
| Serverless functions | No Not in Lightsail — that is the wider AWS (Lambda), with the à la carte billing this product avoids. | No Not a VPS feature. |
| Docker containers | Yes Install Docker on any instance, or use the Lightsail container service from $7/month. | Yes Docker app image at install time, or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | Yes Full root SSH, including a browser-based terminal. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Paris, Stockholm, and Spain. | Yes France, Germany, Poland, and the UK — OVHcloud is EU-headquartered. |
Runtime & operations
| AWS Lightsail | OVHcloud VPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | No No autoscaling — resize by restoring a snapshot to a bigger bundle. | No Manual plan upgrades only. |
| Scale to zero | No Stopped instances bill at full rate; only deletion stops charges. | No A monthly subscription bills until cancelled, powered off or not. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Classic cron on the box. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Yes Managed MySQL/PostgreSQL bundles from $15/month. | Partial Managed databases exist on OVH Public Cloud (from ~$64/month) — a separate product, not part of the VPS. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Partial Instance metrics and alarms in the console; deeper monitoring means CloudWatch or your own stack. | Partial Basic usage graphs in the control panel; app-level monitoring is yours. |
Watch out for
AWS Lightsail
- Stopped instances bill at the full rate — only deleting an instance (snapshot first, $0.05/GB-month) stops charges.
- Transfer overage costs $0.09/GB in US/EU regions, and some regions (Mumbai, Sydney, São Paulo…) include only half the listed allowance.
- The new-account AWS Free plan expires after 6 months or when credits run out, then the account auto-closes with a 90-day grace period.
- Outgrowing Lightsail means migrating to EC2 — a real project, not a plan toggle.
OVHcloud
- The advertised prices are "from" prices tied to the longest commitment — rolling month-to-month costs more.
- Traffic is unlimited in Europe and North America only; Asia-Pacific locations have 500 GB – 3 TB quotas, then throttle to 10 Mbps.
- Standard-tier support is slow and famously unhelpful for anything OS-level — you are expected to manage the server yourself.
- OVHcloud US is a separate legal entity with its own accounts — easy to sign up in the wrong portal.
Read the full reviews: AWS Lightsail and OVHcloud. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.