Being too cloudy without being too cloudy, as per the article, I've gone with a full stack in containers under Docker Compose one one EC2 server, including the database. Services are still logically separated and have a robust CI/CD set up but the cost is a 3rd of what an ECS set up with load balancers and RDS for the database would have been. It's also simpler. Have scripted the server set up, with regular back ups / snapshots but admit I would like db replication in there.