We put in our own raised patio with a retaining wall and pavers. The prep work is a bitch, but vital - do not skimp on the prep. Our gravel layer goes down 8" (I am most definitely not in a frost free area. See carnut’s -40 comment above).
We put it in two years ago, and it still looks fantastic. I haven’t re-sanded, but I need to do that this spring. Yes, we have ants and weeds, but bug bomb and weed-killer are easy and quick to apply. Add in the ease of fixing errors, and I’m totally sold on pavers. There’s lots of different products with varying brick sizes, so you needn’t worry about the surface looking boringly uniform, if that’s not what you’re after. We have a random pattern of four different paver sizes, and love it. There’s others that look like flagstones. Or you can do the uniform herringbone pattern or whatever, if that’s your thing. There’s tons of options.
When I put my patio in a few years back (in a frost zone), I was counciled to use polymeric sand instead of just some regular fine-grain sand. It really makes a big difference in both weed and ant control.
When you put that stuff down between the cracks, you then mist it, and it settles into almost a cement. I still touch it up every spring, but really only in a few spots.
I used this too. Didn’t want just sand and didn’t want to mortar the joints, with the resulting cracks, either. So far so good.
For the OP. I would have gone with poured concrete except that my patio was very difficult to access. It was easier for me to haul in the sand and pavers by hand than it would have been to build the access for a truck. To me, the question is how regular you want the patio to look. Poured and stamped concrete would be more smooth and regular, I think. Pavers would have a more rough look, especially years from now after settling.