You can sign up for a free Hub account and use a micro server (or 2, or more) to test it out and see what you think. The Hub is also a neat way to control your backups (assuming you use TKLBAM). TKLBAM is free for one server.

Because we control the Hub we can upload our latest AMIs straight there - currently they are v14.1. v14.x images support the newer AMI sizes (e.g. t2 etc).

Also the Hub is much more straightforward interface. Whilst it doesn't support all the functionality of the AWS web console, it supports all the stuff that you'd want to be doing day-to-day. And if you are using the Hub then you can still use the AWS console if you feel the need. It won't work the other way around (i.e. instances not launched by the Hub are not accessible via the Hub).

A big downside to using the MarketPlace is that the TurnKey AMIs there are really old (they did have a maintenance refresh late last year; but they do not include newer software versions nor any of the other TurnKey improvements over the last 12 mths. They also only support the older size AWS servers. We are in the process of uploading new images to the MarketPlace (that will be essentially the same as what is on he Hub) but it is mostly out of our control (we rely on Amazon uploading etc).

One downside of the Hub is that unless you wish to just run micro instances, there is a monthly subscription fee. On the upside you can feel good about financially contributing to TurnKey development (all profits are directly rolled back into TurnKey development via contract developers)! :)

Also we are looking to charge for the MarketPlace images at some point in the future. This will apply to existing MarketPlace AMIs as well as new ones. So whilst for now you will get them free of TurnKey charges, they are inferior AMIs and beyond a period of free usage, charges will apply eventually anyway...