What is the best instance type to use for hosting a website on ec2?

Question

Amazon offers two instance types on EC2: 1) On-Demand and 2) Reserved. After reading the docs on these, I don't really understand the difference from an end-user perspective. More specifically, I'd like to know the answer to this question: is one or the other better for web applications?

Based on their names and descriptions, it seems as though on-demand instances may get wiped away from the server altogether if they're not in use which means that they need to be restarted when a request finally does come in. That seems like a pretty bad thing for a website. Am I just misinterpreting the docs?

Thanks!

Answer 1

A reserved instance you have to pay some cash up front for either a 1 or 3 year period. This allows you to run the server at a reduced price (about half price per hour). Other than that, there's no difference regarding how it works, if it'll get wiped or anything. So if you expect to be running a server 24/7 for a year or longer, a reserved instance would be a cheaper solution for you.