Compare / Unkey vs AWS Lightsail
Unkey vs AWS Lightsail
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Unkey checked 2026-08-06, AWS Lightsail checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
AWS Lightsail wins more of our comparison points, but Unkey still fits if production APIs that want hosting, gateway policies, API keys, rate limits, and request analytics in one place describes you.
Price AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail is cheaper at most of the stages we model.
Ease Unkey
Unkey is easier to get running: connect GitHub for automatic builds and branch previews, or deploy a Docker image from the Unkey CLI.
Control AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier AWS Lightsail
AWS Lightsail has a free tier; Unkey doesn't.
Features Unkey
Unkey comes out ahead on 6 of the 15 features we track, versus 4.
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
| Unkey | AWS Lightsail | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Production APIs that want hosting, gateway policies, API keys, rate limits, and request analytics in one place. | Projects that want predictable AWS — a fixed-price server with a clear upgrade path into the wider AWS ecosystem. |
| How deploys work | Connect GitHub for automatic builds and branch previews, or deploy a Docker image from the Unkey CLI. | Pick a blueprint (WordPress, LAMP, Node.js, plain Linux), get SSH in the browser or your terminal, and manage it like any VPS. |
| The tradeoff | It is a young, API-specific platform with metered billing, ephemeral storage, and no managed database. | Costs more per spec than the European VPS crowd, and stopped instances keep billing. |
| Free tier | None | 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. |
What you'd realistically pay
Unkey AWS Lightsail
| Project stage | Unkey | AWS Lightsail | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo Starter — The $5 minimum includes $5 of usage, enough for a small, lightly used API. | ≈$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. | ≈ Tie |
| Steady traffic | ≈$18/mo Starter + usage — About 0.5 active vCPU and 1 GB of memory running continuously before egress or active-key charges. | ≈$12/mo Small — 2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer. | AWS Lightsail |
| Growing | ≈$50/mo Business — The $50 minimum becomes usage credit and raises per-instance limits to 16 vCPU and 32 GB of RAM. | ≈$39/mo Medium + managed database — $24 Medium (4 GB RAM, 4 TB transfer) plus the $15 managed MySQL/PostgreSQL bundle. | AWS Lightsail |
Unkey pricing notes
- Usage rates are $0.000006944 per vCPU-second, $0.000003472 per GB-second of memory, $0.00000006 per GB-second of ephemeral disk, and $0.05 per GB of egress.
- API-key authentication through the gateway adds $0.002 per active key each month. The plan minimum is included usage credit rather than an extra charge on top.
- Log retention is 3 days on Starter, 7 days on Pro, and 14 days on Business.
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.
Our ratings
Ease of use Unkey
Pricing clarity
Free tier AWS Lightsail
Scaling Unkey
Control AWS Lightsail
Feature by feature
Unkey wins 6, AWS Lightsail wins 4, with 5 even.
Deploy workflow
| Unkey | AWS Lightsail | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Connect GitHub; pushes to the default branch deploy production automatically. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Non-default branches and pull requests receive isolated preview deployments. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The Unkey CLI deploys local build contexts or pre-built container images. | Yes The AWS CLI covers Lightsail end to end. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Rollbacks atomically switch traffic to a previous immutable deployment. | Partial Snapshots restore machines ($0.05/GB-month); no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Unkey | AWS Lightsail | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom apex domains and subdomains include automatic TLS; plan limits apply. | Yes Lightsail DNS zones are included; TLS is yours via certbot or a Lightsail distribution. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No The global gateway routes API traffic but is not a static-asset caching CDN. | Yes Lightsail distributions add a CloudFront-backed CDN from $2.50/month (first year of 50 GB/month free). |
| Serverless functions | No Applications run as container instances rather than per-request functions. | No Not in Lightsail — that is the wider AWS (Lambda), with the à la carte billing this product avoids. |
| Docker containers | Yes Build from a Dockerfile or deploy a pre-built image from a registry. | Yes Install Docker on any instance, or use the Lightsail container service from $7/month. |
| SSH / shell access | No The documented workflow exposes logs and metrics, not an interactive SSH shell. | Yes Full root SSH, including a browser-based terminal. |
| EU hosting region | Yes European deployment regions are available; Starter includes three regions and paid upgrades unlock all. | Yes Frankfurt, Ireland, London, Paris, Stockholm, and Spain. |
Runtime & operations
| Unkey | AWS Lightsail | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Yes Horizontal autoscaling adjusts instance count from configured minimums and maximums based on CPU load. | No No autoscaling — resize by restoring a snapshot to a bigger bundle. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Preview environments sleep automatically when idle; apps can also be stopped and started manually. | No Stopped instances bill at full rate; only deletion stops charges. |
| Scheduled jobs | No There is no documented first-class scheduler for cron jobs. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | No No managed database is included; connect an external database service. | Yes Managed MySQL/PostgreSQL bundles from $15/month. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Runtime logs, CPU and memory metrics, request analytics, and gateway decisions appear in the dashboard. | Partial Instance metrics and alarms in the console; deeper monitoring means CloudWatch or your own stack. |
Watch out for
Unkey
- Unkey only launched public app hosting in 2026, so its production track record is much shorter than established platforms such as Heroku, Render, or Railway.
- The monthly plan price is a minimum with matching usage credit, not a compute bundle: CPU, memory, ephemeral disk, egress, and active keys are metered separately.
- Storage is ephemeral and there is no managed database, so persistent data must live with another provider.
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.
Read the full reviews: Unkey and AWS Lightsail. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.