AWS or dedicated server?
bmelton: Base hosting for an AWS small image (if that's still the correct terminology -- equates to about a 1.8Ghz Xeon with 512Mb RAM or so) is $72.50 a month in machine time.  That's to keep the machine running only, not counting bandwidth. Their bandwidth is confusing to me, so I can't really speak to that, and I've only been dealing with me and the machines so far (no users), so I can't speak to how that works out at all.That said, $75 a month or so can get you a small dedicated server in some places that includes a fixed amount of bandwidth, or more predictably priced hosting at slicehost or somewhere similar.If your application doesn't need to scale, then AWS probably doesn't make sense.  If you do, then it does.As an AWS noob myself, the only confusion I had were with the very initial setup (in using the keys provided to authenticate and whatnot) -- and in the initial server configuration.  The major differences you'll need to be aware of are as follows:- The AMI image (basically just a virtual image) is static.  You can't save files to this and expect them to exist after a reboot.  That took a second to get my head around, after configuring apache and rebooting, wondering where it all went.- Set up your base OS, then save the AMI.  It was confusing to me figuring out exactly what needed to go where, and remapping my server between 'fixed' and 'dynamic' content and making sure that they were in appropriate places.  This includes your web server configurations, disk mounts, /var/ directories, etc.  User generated data, SQL data, and (probably) your website data will be stored on either an elastic block or to an S3 bucket. The important thing to note here is that you configure your OS to look how you want it to be every time you wipe it clean.  Perhaps you put your web application on it, perhaps you don't.  I could see using AMIs as a sort of version control for your apps, but I don't know your use case.- The elastic IPs threw me.  Don't release them on production instances. lol.  Effectively, it maps an IP address to your machine virtually, which means it can be moved around.  Your DNS points at the EIP which can be a single apache instance, or later, a load balancer -- all configurable within a couple minutes.Other than that, it took me less than $10 worth of AWS resources to configure a couple servers, deploy my app and get it configured to how it would be in the real world if I were to migrate, so you should definitely check it out.  There's no major upfront commitment like there is with dedicated hosting, so there's really no excuse not to familiarize yourself with it.Also, you definitely want the elasticfox plugin if you're going to do anything with it.  I'd point you at the following resources, which got me up and running within a few hours.- ElasticFox Plugin - http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?ex...- ElasticFox Owner's Manual (PDF) - http://ec2-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/elasticfox-owners-manu...- Configuring MySQL to use ElasticBlock storage - http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?ex...