If you're just starting off, chances are if you have an extra computer lying around, you can host an eqemu server on it, forward ports with your local ISP, and just use that for a good chunk of time. Until you get a significant population there's no real need to get a big cloud server or anything.
I know Akka hosts some eq servers for folks around here, unsure if he's open for more folks, but if you're not very tech saavy it can be a good deal.
If you are tech saavy, you have a number of options.. the biggest issue you typically hit with any cloud servers is the cost of RAM, bandwidth and cpus for uptime of a server.. If you can go custom and limit the number of concurrent zones up (or let zones go to sleep), you can get away with some pretty low profile instances that aren't as costly (~10-20 per month).
You can even host eq on a lightsail instance of AWS if you only plan to have a couple zones up.
Population normally impacts performance more due to everyone spreading around and spinning up endless zones, each one eating up RAM it'll add up.
Anyways, bottom line is probably just start by hosting on your own PC, and once the population gets to be significant you can go basically any route you're most comfortable with.
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