I asked this question the other day and I promised to leave some of my own thoughts.
In general, I prefer to move towards automation and push-button deploys sooner rather than later. For my least several projects, I've introduced docker and github actions way sooner than most people would or a personal project. I like a good PaaS system that allows me to just chuck a package at it and set how many nodes I want. Right now fly.io is my goto.
https://social.polotek.net/@polotek/115652296376163656