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 Google App Engine if you need zero-server classic app deploys on gcp. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| AWS Lightsail | Google App Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Simplified VPS | Managed app platform |
| Free tier | 3 months free on first instances | Standard free quotas per day |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | Flat from ~$5/mo (1GB) | Pay per instance-hour, B/F classes |
| Egress | 1-5TB included by plan | Metered |
| Cold start | N/A (always-on) | Minutes-scale on Standard cold |
| Regions | Major AWS regions | Google regions |
| Best for | Simple sites that still want the AWS backbone | Zero-server classic app deploys on GCP |
Try AWS Lightsail Try Google App Engine
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