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 AWS App Runner if you need containers on aws without touching ecs/eks. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| AWS Lightsail | AWS App Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Simplified VPS | Container PaaS |
| Free tier | 3 months free on first instances | None |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Flat from ~$5/mo (1GB) | vCPU + memory per second, scale to zero |
| Egress | 1-5TB included by plan | Metered |
| Cold start | N/A (always-on) | Seconds from zero |
| Regions | Major AWS regions | AWS regions |
| Best for | Simple sites that still want the AWS backbone | Containers on AWS without touching ECS/EKS |
Try AWS Lightsail Try AWS App Runner
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