I agree that there's a problem with that kind of a false dichotomy, but just as Rails is "good enough" for a vast majority of workloads (where you specialize of

I agree that there's a problem with that kind of a false dichotomy, but just as Rails is "good enough" for a vast majority of workloads (where you specialize off the parts that need it when you need it), I'd say the same about Heroku. The DX scales up from 0 to "big enough" very well, and once you get beyond that, it's reasonably straightforward to take the parts you need inside of AWS inside. I've noticed sometimes that there is often an ideological argument for or against open source (and sometimes to an extreme extent) buried in arguments for complex/expensive/distracting infrastructure, whether directly or indirectly. It gets coded as "portability" and so that's why you end up managing your own metal on Kubernetes. But you've got to really ask yourself whether if you had to pick one, you'd index on convenience or portability. There are some businesses where that portability actually is that important. But there are a lot of businesses for which convenience is first in priority. Determining what your priorities are is the first step. From there, I think you have options.