If your MVP needs a DevOps team before it has users, your stack is probably too complicated.
That may sound blunt, but I think a lot of early teams need to hear it. Founders and developers often believe the real risk is launching with infrastructure that is too simple. In practice, the bigger risk is burning your first week on architecture choices that do nothing to help you get your first customer.
I have seen the same pattern too many times: a team has energy, a real product idea, and enough technical ability to ship something useful. Then momentum disappears into Kubernetes debates, multi-service diagrams, CI/CD pipelines that are more ambitious than the product, and cloud bills that start looking serious before the app even has serious usage.
That is why, if I had 48 hours to launch an MVP today, I would not optimize for elegance, flexibility, or “future-proof” architecture. I would optimize for one thing: shipping.
The Real Problem Is Not Scale
Most early products do not fail because they were launched on infrastructure that was too simple.
They fail because the setup becomes heavier than the product itself.
That happens when teams design for traffic they do not have, reliability requirements they have not earned yet, and operational complexity they do not have the time to manage. They end up building an environment that looks impressive on a whiteboard but slows down every real decision after that.
At the MVP stage, your core problem is usually not scale. It is speed.
You need to validate whether the thing you are building matters. You need users, feedback, iteration, and a path to improve. None of that gets easier when you split your app into five services, introduce orchestration, or spend two full days connecting tools that are solving problems you may not have for the next six months.
Simple infrastructure is not a compromise. Early on, it is often the most disciplined choice you can make.
The Stack I Would Choose
If I had to summarize the stack in one sentence, it would be this:
One app, on simple compute, with managed PostgreSQL, optional object storage, simple CI/CD, a real domain with SSL, and just enough monitoring to sleep at night.
That is it.
Not because more tooling is bad. Because more tooling has to earn its place.
Keep the application together
If the frontend and backend can comfortably live in one codebase, I would keep them together.
That could be Next.js, Django, Laravel, Rails, Node.js, or whatever framework your team already knows well. The framework matters less than the operational shape. One codebase usually means one deployment flow, one logging path, one set of environment variables, and one place to debug when something breaks.
That is a huge advantage when you are moving fast.
Every extra service adds a tax. More deployments. More logs. More networking. More secrets. More failure points. More time spent asking, “Where is the problem actually happening?”
For a mature platform, that tax may be worth it. For an MVP, it usually is not.
Use simple compute you can actually understand
For compute, I would choose either a straightforward application platform or a simple cloud VM.
The reason is not philosophical. It is practical.
I want to know exactly where the application is running. I want to know how to restart it, how to update it, and where to look when something fails. That level of clarity matters more than using the trendiest deployment layer.
A single VM is still one of the most underrated ways to launch software quickly. It is easy to reason about. It gives you control. It reduces hidden complexity. And for many early products, it is more than enough.
If your team is building quickly and wants a clean place to run the first version of the product, a Linux VM is often the fastest path from “working locally” to “live on the internet.”
Choose managed PostgreSQL and move on
For the database, I would choose managed PostgreSQL.
Not self-hosted. Not something exotic. Not an architecture decision that becomes a side project.
Your database is the last place where you want avoidable stress. You want stability, backups, reasonable defaults, and as little manual care as possible. Managed PostgreSQL gives you that while still keeping you in a system that is widely understood and flexible enough for a huge range of applications.
This is one of those decisions where simplicity saves more than time. It saves attention.
You do not want your team spending its most valuable early hours patching the database server, configuring backup scripts at midnight, or wondering whether a one-line setup shortcut created a serious problem later.
Add object storage only if the product truly needs it
A lot of MVP diagrams include object storage by default. I would not.
If the product needs file uploads, media, user documents, generated assets, or large static content, then yes, add it. If not, skip it.
That rule sounds obvious, but it eliminates a lot of unnecessary architecture.
There is a major difference between “this is likely useful later” and “this is necessary to launch.” MVP infrastructure should be built around the second category only.
When you do need storage, keep the model simple. Store files in object storage. Keep application state in the database. Avoid clever hybrids unless there is a real reason.
If your team is still deciding where different kinds of application data should live, this is exactly the kind of question covered in our guide on object storage vs block storage vs VM disk.
Keep deployment boring
For deployment, I would keep it boring on purpose.
Code in GitHub. A simple CI/CD flow. Build, test a few essentials, deploy cleanly.
That is enough.
At this stage, understandable beats impressive every time. I do not need a pipeline that looks enterprise-ready. I need one that the team can trust on a Wednesday night when a quick fix has to go out.
The same logic applies to Docker. I am not anti-Docker. I use it when it reduces friction and makes deployment more consistent. But I would never include it just to make the setup look modern.
If it helps your team move faster, use it. If it becomes another layer you have to fight, skip it.
Add the minimum trust layer
A proper domain and SSL matter more than people think.
Technically, they are basic. Practically, they change how the product feels. A real domain makes the app easier to share, easier to test, easier to support, and easier for users to trust.
That is especially true for an MVP. Early products already ask people to forgive rough edges. You do not need to add “this feels temporary” to the list.
If you need caching, edge protection, or other delivery improvements, add them in the simplest possible way. The question is not “what could a mature platform have here?” The question is “what is the smallest useful version that improves launch readiness?”
Monitoring should answer simple questions
For an MVP, monitoring does not need to become a platform of its own.
I want answers to a short list of questions:
- Is the app up?
- Is it failing?
- Can I see logs?
- Will I know quickly if something important breaks?
That is enough to start.
Uptime checks, logs, a few practical alerts, and basic metrics already cover the majority of early operational needs. You do not need a wall of dashboards to be responsible. You need visibility that actually helps you act.
What I Would Not Use Yet
I would not start with Kubernetes.
That is not an attack on Kubernetes. It is a very capable tool. It is just usually the wrong first move for a product that still needs to prove demand.
Kubernetes introduces real operational weight: more setup, more decisions, more moving parts, and more ways for teams to spend time managing infrastructure before the product has earned that investment.
I would also avoid microservices.
Most MVPs do not have a service-boundary problem. They have a focus problem.
Splitting a young product too early often creates overhead without delivering meaningful value. You get more deployment work, more debugging complexity, and more opportunities for small issues to become distributed issues.
And I would definitely avoid assembling a stack across too many providers and tools just to feel flexible. Flexibility that increases cognitive load on day one is usually just overhead in better clothing.
Complexity Should Be Earned
This is the principle I keep coming back to:
You should earn complexity. You should not start with it.
There is nothing wrong with evolving your infrastructure later. In fact, that is what healthy products do. They start with something understandable, then add sophistication when growth, traffic, team size, and operational pain make the trade worth it.
That is a much better path than trying to impress a future version of the company that does not exist yet.
A lot of teams are not really designing for scale. They are designing around fear.
Fear of rebuilding later. Fear of looking too simple. Fear of making the wrong call.
But rebuilding later is normal. Delaying momentum today is the bigger mistake.
If you want to think more clearly about how environments should evolve as your product grows, our guide on dev, staging, and production environments in the cloud is a good next read. And if you are moving toward repeatable workflows, our guide on automation and Infrastructure-as-Code on Raff explains when that extra structure starts to make sense.
What This Means for You
If you are building an MVP right now, do not ask, “What stack would look impressive?”
Ask, “What stack gives me the best chance of launching this week?”
That question usually leads to better decisions.
You do not need perfect infrastructure. You need infrastructure that gets your product into users’ hands quickly, reliably, and without turning your launch into an infrastructure project.
For many teams, that means starting with simple compute, a clean deployment flow, and a small number of moving parts. If that is where you are, begin with a Raff Linux VM, add a database only when the application needs it, and keep the architecture close enough that one normal developer can understand the whole thing.
The goal is not to look like a big tech company on day one.
The goal is to ship something real, learn fast, and improve from a position of momentum.
That is still the most practical path I know.