Does someone have experience hosting a dedicated server on EC2 24/7? How's the performance and is it cost effective? Or is it preferable to host on digital ocean/linode?
DO / Linode will mostly be cheaper and proooobably offer a better price/performance ratio. You will however get a lot less options (especially GPU wise)
Let’s take your average (okay, this is really beefy, but I couldn't find something lower at most dedicated hosters) gaming system: 8 Cores (16 Threads), 32GB RAM, 2TB HDD. At Digital Ocean, you pay approx. 320$/month for 12 Cores, 32GB RAM, and 320GB SSD
Let’s take your average small hoster, in this case Hetzner, as comparison: You pay 55$/month (plus 55$ setup) for 8 cores (16 Threads), 32GB RAM and 2TB HDD.
I’m just showing this as example: Using Cloud hosters for stuff that is running 24/7 is not cost effective, especially if you always need the same performance – use a dedicated server instead, hosters that specialize on that can provide far better offers.
At those prices, it would be a better deal than hosting after around a year given it would continue working and have resale value.
Jackel Gaming Rig http://elitegamingcomputers.com/gaming-computers/#2