WordPress Hosting on AWS Lightsail

Set up WordPress hosting on AWS Lightsail using AWS's native WordPress blueprint — instance setup, the guided domain/SSL wizard, and admin access.

Jay
August 27, 2026
AWS, Tutorials, WordPress

If you want WordPress hosting on Lightsail without hand-rolling Nginx, PHP-FPM, and Let’s Encrypt yourself, Amazon’s fully managed WordPress blueprint is the fastest path to a production site. Where our EC2 setup guide walks through building the server by hand, Lightsail bundles compute, storage, and a guided setup wizard into one predictable monthly plan — you’re online in about 15 minutes.

A Quick Note on Blueprints: Use Lightsail, Not Bitnami

Lightsail lists two blueprint providers for WordPress: Lightsail and Bitnami. As of May 19, 2026, the Bitnami-packaged blueprint stopped receiving updates, and AWS retires it for new instances on November 19, 2026. Existing Bitnami instances keep running fine, but for anything new, pick the Lightsail blueprint provider. It’s actively maintained, has IMDSv2 enforced by default, and comes with the guided setup wizard this tutorial uses — no more digging through SSH for a bitnami_application_password file.

What It Costs

Entry-level Lightsail Linux plans start at $3.50/month for an IPv6-only instance, or $5/month if you want a public IPv4 address — both bundle compute, SSD storage, and a data transfer allowance into one flat price. For a low-traffic blog, the $5 or $7/month tier is plenty to start, and you can resize later by spinning up a new instance from a snapshot rather than migrating everything by hand.

Step 1: Launch a WordPress Instance

Sign in to the Lightsail console and choose Create instance.
Pick your AWS Region and Availability Zone.
Under Select a platform, choose Linux/Unix, then select the WordPress blueprint with Lightsail as the blueprint provider.
Choose an instance plan (bundle) — the $5 or $7/month tier works for most new blogs.
Name your instance and choose Create instance.

Once the instance shows a Running state, grab the public IPv4 address from the instance page and paste it into a browser. You’ll see WordPress’s default test post — confirmation the server is up before you touch DNS or SSL.

Step 2: Run the Guided Website Setup

This is the part that used to mean manually attaching a static IP, editing DNS records, then SSH-ing in to run bncert-tool. Now it’s one wizard.

On the instance page, open the Connect tab and choose Set up your website, then work through:

Domain name — use a domain registered through Lightsail, or one you already own with another registrar.
DNS management — choose a Lightsail-managed DNS zone, or Third-party domain if you’ll keep managing DNS records elsewhere (Lightsail still creates a matching zone in your account as a backup).
Static IP — name it and create it. This is what keeps your IP address fixed across instance stops/starts.
Domain assignments — attach your domain and subdomains (e.g. www) to the static IP.
SSL/TLS certificate — select your domains, enter an email address, authorize Lightsail to configure a Let’s Encrypt certificate, and create it.

Setup can take up to 15 minutes — don’t stop or modify the instance while it runs. Two things worth double-checking beforehand:

Your instance firewall needs ports 22, 80, and 443 open to any IP address while setup is in progress (default on a fresh instance — just don’t lock them down early).
If you’re using third-party DNS, give your DNS changes a few minutes to propagate before the SSL/TLS step:

				
					# Confirm your domain resolves to the static IP you just created
dig +short yourdomain.com

Let’s Encrypt certificates issued through this wizard renew automatically every 60–90 days — no cron job or certbot maintenance required.

Step 3: Get Your Admin Password

WordPress generates a random admin password on first boot, and Lightsail hands it to you through CloudShell rather than a file over SSH:

On the instance page, find the WordPress panel and choose Retrieve default password.
Choose Launch CloudShell — this opens an embedded terminal panel.
Paste the command Lightsail provides into CloudShell and run it.
Copy the password it prints. You’ll only need it once, to log in and set your own.

Step 4: Log In to wp-admin

On the instance page’s WordPress panel, choose Access WordPress Admin.
Use either the public IP link (http://<public-ipv4>/wp-admin) or, once your domain and SSL are live, https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
Username: user — not admin, which trips people up.
Password: the one you copied in Step 3.

Log in, then head straight to Users → Profile and set a password of your own. The default one lives in a system-generated location you don’t want to rely on long-term.

Next Steps

Attach a Lightsail CDN distribution in front of your instance for caching and faster global load times.
Turn on automatic daily snapshots from the instance’s Snapshots tab — cheap insurance before any plugin update or theme change.
Want more control over the stack — custom Nginx config, PHP tuning, multiple sites on one server? Our Nginx on Ubuntu guide and Let’s Encrypt guide cover the manual route. It’s more setup time in exchange for more control than the managed blueprint gives you.