A single EC2 instance is an equally bad trade-off on the opposite side of the spectrum from over architected SQS, SNS, etc…
The ideal trade off is a single Kubernetes cluster with as much in the cluster as makes sense for the team and stage of the project. As you say, toss the app on a single node to start, but the control plane is tremendously valuable from on the onset of most projects.
The ideal trade off is a single Kubernetes cluster with as much in the cluster as makes sense for the team and stage of the project. As you say, toss the app on a single node to start, but the control plane is tremendously valuable from on the onset of most projects.