Why am I paying $20–50/month for apps that could run on a $5 VPS?

After paying for managed hosting for a while, I started asking myself a simple question:

Why am I paying $20–50/month for apps that could run on a $5 VPS?

The answer wasn't the server it was the operational complexity.

Buying a VPS is cheap.
Managing Docker, SSL, databases, backups, monitoring, and deployments isn't.

So I built DeployOS.

It's a desktop app that connects to your VPS over SSH and lets you:

• Deploy apps in minutes

• Install databases with one click

• Get automatic HTTPS

• Monitor your server

• Create backups

• Diagnose issues with a built-in Doctor

No Kubernetes.
No YAML.
No agents installed on your server.

The goal isn't to replace platforms like Vercel or Railway for everyone. It's to make self-hosting simple enough that more developers can own their infrastructure without spending weekends as a DevOps engineer.

I'm looking for feedback from developers who self-host or are thinking about moving off managed platforms.

What's been the hardest part of running your own VPS?