Depends on what you do. If you need to have a fully working site with external integrations, SSL and so on, it's just easier to spend $4 a month on a VPS. But y

Depends on what you do. If you need to have a fully working site with external integrations, SSL and so on, it's just easier to spend $4 a month on a VPS. But you're right, for many backend-based projects a local VM like multipass or a kind/microk8s cluster are perfectly fine.