AWS Lightsail vs Kamatera

AWS Lightsail is strongest for AWS ecosystem users. Kamatera is strongest for custom VM sizing. Here's how they stack up on price, uptime, and support.

Feature	AWS Lightsail	Kamatera
Starting price	$0.8/mo	$0.05/mo
Best for	AWS ecosystem users Predictable bundled pricing Windows workloads	Custom VM sizing Global data center selection Windows Server hosting Dev/test environments
Stated uptime SLA	99.9%	99.95%
Storage	SSD	NVME
Regions	16	20
Managed Kubernetes	No	Yes
Support channels	AWS Support plans (separate from Lightsail), Community forums, Docs	Ticket, Phone, Docs, Pro/Premium Managed Services (paid)
Compliance	SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA eligible	GDPR
Hidden costs to watch for	Data transfer overage varies significantly by AWS region ($0.09-$0.132/GB) Windows bundles cost 70-90% more than equivalent Linux bundles	Bandwidth overage billed at $0.01/GB past the pooled monthly allowance (5 TB US/Canada/Europe, 1 TB Asia-Pacific) Windows Server / SQL Server / Exchange / RDS licensing adds an undisclosed per-server surcharge only shown at calculator checkout Type T (Burstable) CPU incurs a $0.041/hour/CPU overage charge once average CPU usage exceeds 10% Powered-off (but not terminated) servers may continue to accrue charges Pro Managed Services add $50/server/month; Premium Managed Services add $150/server/month
Last reviewed	2026-07-17	2026-07-18