[nvarsj]

For a medium size biz, I'd probably still recommend using GKE or EKS. A smallish EKS cluster of a few nodes will cost <1k a month for everything, it's fully managed so you don't need to pay anyone except for the initial setup.

Otw the cheaper operational cost would be to setup a few hetzner servers and manage your own infra via kubernetes or docker/ansible runbooks. But you should budget a few days each month for maintenance and general support, plus you'll need someone skilled in server maintenance to set it all up (becoming a rarish skill these days).

If on a ramen budget, you can set it up and let it rot until everything breaks, then migrate to EKS. :)

[ashishb]

I have yet to see a GKE/EKS setup that does not require ~250+ hours of a mid-level engineer's time a year (amortized).

Unless there is a team of 20+ engineers, I cannot recommend Kubernetes to anyone. It is a great primitive that's too primitive for smaller teams.