May 31, 2026
Kubernetes is a powerful tool, but deploying and maintaining it requires a lot of effort. Before you commit to K8s, consider simpler alternatives.
If your application is one big process (e.g. classic Laravel or Django), throwing it into K8s will add a layer of abstraction that brings no benefits. Docker Compose or plain SystemD on one or two machines behind a Load Balancer is enough.
K8s requires understanding networking (CNI), storage (CSI), ingress controllers, and RBAC. If you don't have someone on your team who is fluent in these concepts (or you don't hire someone externally), K8s will be a maintenance nightmare.
Managed K8s (EKS, GKE) costs a minimum of $70 per month just for the control plane. Add to that worker nodes, ingresses, load balancers. Often a simple VPS for $10/mo will do exactly the same thing for a small project.
Don't be afraid of simplicity. The complexity of the infrastructure should be proportional to the scale of the problem you are solving.