Not advocating for complexity or k8s, but if your workflow can be served by a single VM, then you are magnitudes away from the volume and complexity that would

Not advocating for complexity or k8s, but if your workflow can be served by a single VM, then you are magnitudes away from the volume and complexity that would push you to have k8s setup and there is even no debate of it. There are situations where a single VM, no matter how powerful is, can do the job.