As always, the right solution depends on what you're building. "Dedicated server" sounds like you're asking about one or maybe a few machines. If that's the ca

As always, the right solution depends on what you're building. "Dedicated server" sounds like you're asking about one or maybe a few machines. If that's the case, you're better off with dedicated hardware from a vendor you're familiar with. AWS is an entirely different way to build an application infrastructure. You don't keep state on any one instance because you plan for redundancy. Rather than have 1 or 2 front-end machines, you're running 1 or 2 load balancers in front of N front-end machines. If something goes awry with a front-end instance, you take it out of the loop and start another to add to the loop without downtime. It's the kind of power that up to now only companies with large IT budgets have enjoyed.