I think you and the people disagreeing with you are both right, in a sense. These tools can absolutely simplify and improve even a small deployment…for someone with significant experience using them. But there’s a lot of learning that has to happen to get to that level of experience. And for a solo operator or small team without that experience, investing that time into learning may not be the best investment.
You see this contextual disagreement a ton here on HN. Those who gave taken the time to learn these tools and have practical experience using them for real deployments see the alternative as primitive, error prone and fundamentally limiting. Those without the experience see the tools as overly-complex distractions. Both are true, depending on your situation. Like almost all tech decisions, there are no universally correct answers. The best decisions are those tailored to the specific circumstances.
You see this contextual disagreement a ton here on HN. Those who gave taken the time to learn these tools and have practical experience using them for real deployments see the alternative as primitive, error prone and fundamentally limiting. Those without the experience see the tools as overly-complex distractions. Both are true, depending on your situation. Like almost all tech decisions, there are no universally correct answers. The best decisions are those tailored to the specific circumstances.