Most K8s upgrades can happen independently of node reboots etc., you only need to update for OS updates really, but that would be true of anywhere you run PG, even RDS.
>but that would be true of anywhere you run PG, even RDS
It's a little easier to strip down userland if the machine is only running PG. Technically possible on k8s with distros like Talos, Bottlerocket, etc but you still have all the k8s deps on top of PG. It's also a little easier to do defense-in-depth on a dedicated PG machine which means you might have mitigating controls in place to skip security patches (minimal kernel modules, selinux)--possible on k8s but now you're fighting through a 2nd layer of configuration
RDS is a bit of a special case because you also have AWS curating and prioritizing updates. You can do that yourself but it's a bit of a time sink scrutinizing every upgrade to see if you _really_ need it. Our RDS instances tend to go 3+ months without restarts