Ask HN: Advice on what to use as deployment platform for a toy project

Hi HNers,

I'm working on a toy project for an experimental search engine and this time I'm not sure if follow the VPS route, or to try something more "fashionable" like EC2 or Heroku. Previously I've worked with linode and its advantages are great control, but this requires a lot of knowledge, time and patience to finally do a good job.

What is your advice on this? I've read great things about both parties however I'm not sure if, for example EC2 works exactly in the same way that a VPS would work, or if this decision should be relegated until I have a working prototype. What have been your experience on this subject?

I expect to do this on Python, if this skews the response.

Thanks.

A.