Learn about Lightsail and its global availability

What is Amazon Lightsail?

Amazon Lightsail is the easiest way to get started with AWS for developers, small businesses, students, and other users who need a solution to build and host their websites and web applications in the cloud. Lightsail provides developers compute, storage, and networking capacity. Lightsail includes everything you need to launch your project quickly – virtual machines, containers, databases, CDN, load balancers, DNS management etc. – for a low, predictable monthly price.

What can I do with Lightsail?

You can create preconfigured virtual private servers (instances) that include everything to easily deploy and manage your application, or create databases for which the security and health of the underlying infrastructure and operating system is managed by Lightsail. Lightsail is best suited to projects that require a few dozen instances or less, and developers who prefer a simple management interface. Common use cases for Lightsail include running websites, web applications, business software, blogs, e-commerce sites, and more. As your project grows, you can use load balancers and attached block storage with your instance to increase redundancy and uptime and access dozens of other AWS services to add new capabilities.

Does Lightsail offer an API?

Yes. Everything you do in the Lightsail console is backed by a publicly available API. Learn how to install and use the Lightsail CLI and API.

How do I sign up for Lightsail?

To start using Lightsail, choose Get Started and log in. You use your Amazon Web Services account to access Lightsail; if you don't already have one, you'll be prompted to create one.

In which AWS Regions is Lightsail available?

Lightsail is currently available in the following AWS Regions:

AWS Regions

• US East (Ohio) (us-east-2)

• US East (N. Virginia) (us-east-1)

• US West (Oregon) (us-west-2)

• Asia Pacific (Mumbai) (ap-south-1)

• Asia Pacific (Seoul) (ap-northeast-2)

• Asia Pacific (Singapore) (ap-southeast-1)

• Asia Pacific (Sydney) (ap-southeast-2)

• Asia Pacific (Tokyo) (ap-northeast-1)

• Canada (Central) (ca-central-1)

• EU (Frankfurt) (eu-central-1)

• EU (Ireland) (eu-west-1)

• EU (London) (eu-west-2)

• EU (Paris) (eu-west-3)

• EU (Stockholm) (eu-north-1)

For more information, see AWS Regions and Availability Zones in Lightsail.

What are Availability Zones?

Availability Zones are collections of data centers that run on physically distinct, independent infrastructure and are engineered to be highly reliable. Common points of failure such as generators and cooling equipment are not shared between Availability Zones. Additionally, Availability Zones are physically separate, so that even extremely uncommon disasters such as fires, tornadoes, or flooding can affect only a single Availability Zone.

What are the Lightsail service quotas?

For the latest Lightsail service quotas, including which quotas can be increased, see Lightsail service quotas in the AWS General Reference. To increase a service quota, open a case with AWS Support.

How can I get more help?

The context-sensitive help panel in Lightsail offers immediate helpful tips about your actions in the console. To open the help panel, choose the help panel icon ⓘ in the upper-right corner of the Lightsail console. From the Lightsail console, you can also access a library of getting started guides, overviews, and how-to topics. And if you want to use the Lightsail API, or AWS CLI, Lightsail has a full API reference for all supported programming languages. You can also use Lightsail support resources.

If you have an issue with your account or billing, contact AWS Support online. You get free 24x7 access with your Lightsail account.

For general questions about how to use Lightsail, search the Lightsail documentation and support forums.

Additionally, AWS Support offers an array of paid plans to cover your individual needs.