[nine_k]

At small scale, you can lower your complexity using cloud. You don't need k8s for a small operation, just spin a couple of VMs and set them up via a few lines of Ansible.

OTOH you can pick a managed datsbase: you just get a connection string to a Postgres with failover and backup already taken care of. Same with queue services, email services, etc. They have really simple APIs.

You only need platform-specific knowledge when you start operating at a larger scale. By that time, you likely can afford to hire a dedicated SRE.

[Nextgrid]

> You don't need k8s for a small operation, just spin a couple of VMs and set them up via a few lines of Ansible.

You can replace "couple VMs" with a dedicated Hetzner/OVH/Kimsufi server, it'll be the same except you won't get ripped off on egress bandwidth and performance.

[nine_k]

I agree that AWS egress bandwidth is a rip-off, but cloud != AWS only. Many cloud providers, from DO to Vultr, offer sane egress prices.

The cheapest dedicated server at Hetzner (an excellent provier indeed) is €44.39 / mo, while their cheapest VM option is €4.51 / mo, literally an order of magnitude less. If you don't need the power of a dedicated server for your small project (and even 10 small projects), you don't need to buy it.

You can't have a free dedicated server, but many small projects can run either entirely within free tiers of some cloud providers, or for pennies a month based on usage.

OTOH you of course can run such small projects from your desktop at home, or maybe even from your NAS or router if they are beefy enough, entirely under your control, and for free!

The key value prop of the cloud for me is elasticity. Say, our project spins up more nodes in anticipation of daily waves of traffic, and then spins them down to save cost when the load goes way down. This won't work so well with long-term dedicated servers.

[Nextgrid]

OVH has their Kimsufi range which gives you low-power dedicated with unmetered bandwidth and the basic ones go under 10 bucks a month. It's 100Mbps, but unlimited traffic, and a real low-power CPU is most likely still better than cloud "vCPUs".