Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick AWS Lightsail if your workload is simple sites that still want the aws backbone and its included egress fits your traffic shape; pick Alibaba Cloud if you need reaching apac users at apac prices. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| AWS Lightsail | Alibaba Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Simplified VPS | Full cloud (ECS) |
| Free tier | 3 months free on first instances | Trial credits |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Flat from ~$5/mo (1GB) | ECS from ~$2.50/mo promo |
| Egress | 1-5TB included by plan | Metered by region |
| Cold start | N/A (always-on) | N/A |
| Regions | Major AWS regions | Strong APAC + global |
| Best for | Simple sites that still want the AWS backbone | Reaching APAC users at APAC prices |
Try AWS Lightsail Try Alibaba Cloud
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