If you want to avoid containers/complexity, you could just have a shell script (or choose your pet language) that starts the apps via a single command on your m

If you want to avoid containers/complexity, you could just have a shell script (or choose your pet language) that starts the apps via a single command on your machine (e.g. $> start-my-app). That would handle the actual startup on your specified ports (it could even randomly discover open ports and use those if you don't care).