> Why do you want to be able to run the app elsewhere? To test new features? To reduce regressions? Reasonable goals, but at the end of the day the only thing t

> Why do you want to be able to run the app elsewhere? To test new features? To reduce regressions? Reasonable goals, but at the end of the day the only thing that is identical to production is production. Unless you have a real time copy of all of the data and you continually run copies of all real time production requests, it's not production. It might be the same code and a very similar infrastructure, but without the same data and load, you are going to get regressions in production. Maybe it's flaky historic data or unexpected patterns of load, but whether we like it or not, we're all already testing in production. That is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Sure, there are classes of bugs you'll only be able to find in production, but there are also large classes of bugs you can find in a development/test environment. In general, it's a good thing to minimize the bugs you find in production. It's certainly less stressful.