The fuel gas lasts a useful amount of time, especially considering that the cylinders are so small, but you can use standard propane or MAPP gas, or even butane if it's warm, instead.
On the other hand, the oxy hardly lasts any time at all - ten minutes at best, and a couple of minutes if you're pushing it.
For oxygen I use a DeVilbiss 4 l/min oxygen concentrator, and normally use butane/propane mix for fuel - if it's a hard job I use MAPP gas instead of butane/propane.
The concentrator cost £240 on fleabay, and it's a permanent source of oxygen at negligible cost, just a bit of lekky. No rental charges, no refill charges, no "transport" charges, no delivery charges. :)
It doesn't produce enough gas to run a full-size torch tip, though it will weld 1/8" steel with MAPP gas, running a #1 tip just fine, and a #2 tip at almost full blast, though it does get a bit sticky then.
I don't use a regulator as the oxygen is only at 5 psi or so. I'm told that with some machines at full flow a regulator or even a thick rubber balloon is useful to minimise the effects of the changing output pressure, which can vary from 5 - 10 psi over 20 seconds or so, but the one I have doesn't seem to have that problem, or at least not badly. It's only even apparent at the highest flow rates, but ymmv.
The output pressure (and flow) is too low to do any cutting however.
For argon I hire cylinders and refill my own from them, though I don't know whether the people I hire them from know that :~) . They don't charge cylinder hire if you only hire them over a weekend, but they only do that deal with 2000 l cylinders. They are BO (and AP iirc) dealers, but I don't think those particular cylinders come from BO or AP.
I speculate that you could usefully use pub CO2 cylinders filled to about 800 psi or so for Argon, but I haven't done it, using purchased empty Argon cylinders (at half pressure or less) instead. This is just speculation, not advice, and I take no responsibility if anyone is injured or killed.
-- Peter Fairbrother