"One option is to purchase a hardware server and keep it on premises" - really? I expected something intelligent in the article, but this option looks too dumb.
...until you realize that owning hardware is the cheapest option.
Typically only at fairly large scales or if you aren't counting labor costs.
just put it under your desk!
One can seat on the server also!
I know you're joking but a server under a desk is a fine alternative to a lot of compute-heavy background tasks where you can tolerate downtime without any user-facing effects.
No jokes buddy. Today, millions have home local storage servers like QNAP which can run many webapps or scripts.