Sold by: ClearScale
Deployed on AWS
AWS Free Tier
A high-performance, production-ready Debian 12 base image. Pre-hardened to CIS Level 1 benchmarks for immediate compliance, stripped of unnecessary packages and fully supported by Clearscale.
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Overview
This is a hardened, enterprise-ready operating system image optimized for AWS deployments. Built-in security hardening and ongoing lifecycle maintenance are included for an additional charge.
Leverage the reliability and security of Debian 12, engineered specifically for AWS environments. This Amazon Machine Image (AMI) delivers a highly secure, stable foundation right out of the box, drastically reducing the time required for initial configuration and manual security patching.
Core Capabilities:
- Latest Updates: Debian 12 deployed with the most recent security updates applied at build time.
- CIS Hardening: CIS Level 1 Benchmark configurations applied to guarantee a secure baseline.
- IMDSv2 Enforced: Strictly enforced metadata service to protect against SSRF vulnerabilities.
- Seamless Management: Native AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Agent pre-installed for streamlined remote management.
- Clean OS: Zero unnecessary telemetry agents and absolutely no cross-cloud bloatware.
- Secure Access: SSH heavily hardened, with root login and password authentication entirely disabled.
Operational Advantages:
- Rapid Deployment: Spin up fully hardened, compliant instances in minutes rather than hours or days.
- Reduced Overhead: Eliminates the tedious need for manual OS hardening, patching, and agent installation before deploying workloads.
- Audit-Ready Infrastructure: Pre-configured to align with strict industry security standards, easing the burden of compliance audits and security reviews.
Use Cases:
- Enterprise Workloads: The perfect foundation for deploying and managing mission-critical applications or services at scale.
- Regulated Environments: Highly recommended for industries requiring strict security baselines, such as finance, healthcare, and public sector.
- Development and Testing: Provides a secure, highly predictable environment for software engineering teams to iterate and stage safely.
Accelerate your AWS journey with Debian 12 and build your cloud strategies on a secure, optimized infrastructure.
Highlights
- CIS Hardened by Default: CIS Level 1 benchmarks applied, IMDSv2 enforced, root SSH disabled, and password authentication removed at build time.
- Zero Bloat, Operationally Ready: Carefully stripped of legacy packages, stale kernels, and unnecessary background services to minimize vulnerabilities. Includes the native AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Agent for seamless remote access without a bastion host.
- Secure Foundation: Designed for rapid, repeatable EC2 deployments in production environments, strictly aligned with AWS security best practices.
Details
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Delivery method
Delivery option
64-bit (x86) Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
Latest version
Operating system
Debian 12
Deployed on AWS
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Features and programs
Financing for AWS Marketplace purchases
AWS Marketplace now accepts line of credit payments through the PNC Vendor Finance program. This program is available to select AWS customers in the US, excluding NV, NC, ND, TN, & VT.
Pricing
Pricing is based on actual usage, with charges varying according to how much you consume. Subscriptions have no end date and may be canceled any time.
Additional AWS infrastructure costs may apply. Use the AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate your infrastructure costs.
If you are an AWS Free Tier customer with a free plan, you are eligible to subscribe to this offer. You can use free credits to cover the cost of eligible AWS infrastructure. See AWS Free Tier for more details. If you created an AWS account before July 15th, 2025, and qualify for the Legacy AWS Free Tier, Amazon EC2 charges for Micro instances are free for up to 750 hours per month. See Legacy AWS Free Tier for more details.
Dimension | Cost/hour |
|---|---|
t3.small Recommended | $0.12 |
t3.micro | $0.06 |
t2.micro | $0.19 |
c8i.8xlarge | $1.92 |
c5d.24xlarge | $3.84 |
c8in.2xlarge | $0.48 |
c5ad.16xlarge | $3.84 |
g4ad.xlarge | $0.24 |
c6in.4xlarge | $0.96 |
c8i.large | $0.12 |
Dimensions summary
You pay by the hour for each running instance, and the software fee is added on top of standard AWS infrastructure charges. Each dimension maps to a specific EC2 instance type, so pricing scales with the compute you choose. Smaller instances (like t3.nano or m1.small) carry lower hourly rates, while larger and specialized instances (like metal, GPU, memory-optimized, or high-memory types) carry higher rates. This covers the Debian 12 operating system with vendor support. There is no upfront commitment; you are billed only for the hours each instance runs.
Top-of-mind questions for buyers
Each dimension matches one EC2 instance type. One billed hour equals one hour that a single instance of that type runs. Larger or specialized types (metal, GPU, memory-optimized) map to higher hourly rates. Running two instances of the same type doubles the hourly charge.
The hourly software fee applies only while an instance runs. A stopped or paused instance does not accrue the software charge. Standard AWS storage fees for attached volumes may still apply while stopped, but that is separate from this listing's per-hour software rate.
The fee covers the Debian 12 operating system plus vendor support from ClearScale. It is added on top of standard AWS infrastructure charges for the instance you run. You pay both the software fee and the underlying AWS compute cost for each hour.
www.clearscale.com
Helpful?
Vendor refund policy
Usage is billed by AWS on a pay-as-you-go basis by the hour. The Debian 12 instance can be stopped or terminated at any time to stop incurring additional software charges. Refunds are not available once launched. To completely avoid future costs, ensure you terminate the instance and cancel your AWS Marketplace subscription.
Legal
Vendor terms and conditions
Upon subscribing to this product, you must acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions outlined in the vendor's End User License Agreement (EULA) .
Content disclaimer
Vendors are responsible for their product descriptions and other product content. AWS does not warrant that vendors' product descriptions or other product content are accurate, complete, reliable, current, or error-free.
Delivery details
64-bit (x86) Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
An AMI is a virtual image that provides the information required to launch an instance. Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances are virtual servers on which you can run your applications and workloads, offering varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources. You can launch as many instances from as many different AMIs as you need.
Version release notes
[Release v17AUG26] ClearImages Debian 12 stage build (x86_64). CIS Level 1 hardening, IMDSv2 enforced, SSM + CloudWatch agents pre-installed.
Additional details
Usage instructions
- Launch via AWS Marketplace 1-Click or EC2 console.
- Select t3.small or larger. Ensure your security group allows inbound SSH (port 22) from your IP.
- Connect via SSH: ssh -i your-key.pem admin@<public-ip> Or use SSM Session Manager from the EC2 console (no SSH key required).
Resources
Vendor resources
Support
Vendor support
Email support for this AMI is available through the following: https://clearscale.com/clearimages/support OR clearimages-support@clearscale.com
AWS infrastructure support
AWS Support is a one-on-one, fast-response support channel that is staffed 24x7x365 with experienced and technical support engineers. The service helps customers of all sizes and technical abilities to successfully utilize the products and features provided by Amazon Web Services.
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Customer reviews
Adam
Hardened debian cluster has simplified edge load balancing and has reduced security maintenance
Reviewed on Jun 30, 2026
Review from a verified AWS customer
What is our primary use case?
We run a high-availability HAProxy cluster at the very edge of our infrastructure to route incoming traffic to our app tiers. It's a classic active/passive setup using Keepalived with a floating virtual IP (VIP) to handle instant failover. Debian is our absolute go-to for anything network-heavy like this because of its stability, and we use this pre-hardened image as the base for the nodes in the cluster.
How has it helped my organization?
Honestly, it just took a massive chunk of recurring maintenance off our plate. Because our load balancers are directly exposed to public traffic, we used to spend a significant amount of time updating Packer templates, patching packages, and double-checking CIS compliance rules. Switching to this AMI meant the hardening was already baked in and kept up-to-date by ClearScale. Our security audits are now a breeze because we don't have to defend our own custom OS tweaks anymore.
What is most valuable?
Debian's core stability under massive network stress has been the real highlight. Running high-throughput load balancers requires predictable TCP performance and zero memory leaks. This image is incredibly clean with no background bloatware eating up memory or CPU cycles, allowing HAProxy to run at maximum efficiency with super low latency. We didn't have to spend any time doing custom kernel or network-level tuning to get top-tier performance.
What needs improvement?
A slimmed-down 'minimal' build option for this Debian 13 release would be fantastic for minimizing the attack surface even further.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been running ClearScale Debian in production for about six months. But our team has used Debian in general for over ten years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to spin up different vendors' Debian AMIs and run a massive Ansible playbook at launch to strip out packages, lock down SSH, and set up the local firewalls. It worked, but it was slow, fragile, and we had to constantly maintain the script as Debian evolved. We switched to this AMI to get that hardening out-of-the-box, which made our deployment workflows much faster and less prone to failures.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since we only run a small cluster of edge load balancers rather than a massive fleet of app servers, the hourly license premium is basically a rounding error on our AWS bill. For critical gateway infrastructure, paying a few cents extra per hour to have a verified hardened base OS is extremely cheap insurance.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We considered a few routes: sticking with the standard AWS AMIs and building our own Packer pipeline, or evaluating older Ubuntu releases. We stuck with Debian because of its reputation for rock-solid networking, and chose the ClearScale version because the math made sense. Their hourly markup is way cheaper than having our senior engineers build, test, and audit custom base images ourselves.
What other advice do I have?
If you are setting up Keepalived for high availability, remember to explicitly allow VRRP protocol in your firewall config before starting the service. If you don't, both of your HAProxy nodes will think they are the active master and you'll end up with a split-brain scenario. Once you have that rule in place, it’s a beautifully quiet and stable setup.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)