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AWS launches Amazon Lightsail, a DigitalOcean killer offering $5 virtual private servers

Amazon Lightsail.

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At its annual re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Amazon Lightsail, a new way for developers to quickly and easily get access to low-cost virtual private servers (VPS).

They don’t need to worry about provisioning storage, security groups, or identity and access management (IAM) when they want to just get a box to run a simple application. They can just use Amazon Lightsail now.

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The thing is, for years companies like Linode and BlueHost have offered cheap VPS options. The startup DigitalOcean has risen to popularity because it made the VPS hip and a simpler alternative to AWS. Now AWS is directly going after the DigitalOcean style of cloud infrastructure — starting at $5, the Lightsail VPS prices are certainly competitive.

VPS isn’t something that the other major cloud infrastructure providers like Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure offer. But it’s only a matter of time before that changes.

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The service is currently available only through AWS’ US East (Northern Virginia) data center region, AWS cheif evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.

Details on the service are here.

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