You can run single-node k3s on a VM with 512MB of RAM and deploy your app with a hundred lines of JSON, and it inherits a ton of useful features that are managed in one place and can grow with your app if/as needed. These discussions always go in circles between Haters and Advocates:

* H: "kubernetes [at planetary scale] is too complex"

* A: "you can run it on a toaster and it's simpler to reason about than systemd + pile of bash scripts"

* H: "what's the point of single node kubernetes? I'll just SSH in and paste my bash script and call it a day"

* A: "but how do you scale/maintain that?"

* H: "who needs that scale?"