It depends on your workload and use case IMO. If you work at a company that is using LLM coding as staff augmentation (my current and last job) a subscription setup and (usually) buying tokens is cheaper. As someone working on a side project I’ve been getting a really good ROI on my box made from used parts running Qwen models. I need something that will make progress but I’m sending a prompt, going about my day/dayjob, and check back in.

There’s no way I’ll beat a $200 subscription on total output but I am too busy piloting LLMs, taking care of my kid, having a social life, etc to max out a cloud subscription. I can however blow through the lower tiers of cloud subscriptions when doing hobby work.

A bunch of what I’m doing these days is in the category of people doing porting of ancient software or unexpected software. It’s fun and every so often I can contribute stuff back to the community. The box runs at under 1kW and I have the ability to remote manage it to turn it on and off when I’m not using it. Given it’s winter it’s a slightly annoying sounding but equally useful space heater in some ways .