We now use a DigitalOceans managed database with 0 standby nodes, coupled with a droplet running Django. It is working good.

We are however thinking about switching to a new dedicated server at another provider (Hetzner) where we are looking at having the Web server and the DB on the same server, however the new server will have hugely improved performance (which is sometimes needed), still at a reduced cost compared to the DigitalOcean setup.

The thing we are doubting is if having a managed db is worth it. The sell in is that everything is of course managed. But what does this mean in reality? Updating packages is easy, backups as well (to some extent), and we still do not use any standby nodes and doubt we will need any replication. So far we have never had the need to recover anything (about 5 years). Before we got the managed db we had it in the same machine (as we are now looking at going back to) and never had any issues.

Any input?