if you take the time to understand k8s and have a straightforward k8s deployment, these things aren't really a problem - and you don't have to do the custom sysadmin timesinks that need to go into the "simple" suggestion. What is suggested here is "easy". But it is not simple: it proliferates custom work.

I have had great success with a very simple kube deployment:

- GKE (EKS works well but requires adding an autoscaler tool)

- Grafana + Loki + Prometheus for logs + metrics

- cert-manager for SSL

- nginx-ingress for routing

- external-dns for autosetup DNS

I manage these with helm. I might, one day, get around to using the Prometheus Operator thing, but it doesn't seem to do anything for me except add a layer of hassle.

New deployments of my software roll out nicely. If I need to scale, cut a branch for testing, I roll into a new namespace easily, with TLS autosetup, DNS autosetup, logging to GCP bucket... no problem.

I've done the "roll out an easy node and run" thing before, and I regret it, badly, because the back half of the project was wrangling all these stupid little operational things that are a helm install away on k8s.

So if you're doing a startup: roll out a nice simple k8s deployment, don't muck it up with controllers, operators, service meshes, auto cicds, gitops, etc. *KISS*.

If you're trying to spin a number of small products: just use the same cluster with different DNS.

(note: if this seems particularly appealing to you, reach out, I'm happy to talk. This is a very straightforward toolset that has lasted me years and years, and I don't anticipate having to change it much for a while)