So many red flags in this article.
So the author was previously using dokku. Dokku was cool, and was basically a docker-based heroku clone. The keyword here is heroku, because dokku basically brings away a lot of the operations work that is needed to actually run a service, at a small scale, with reasonably good results. Dokku was cool, but it didn't really scale beyond one node (unless you have multiple machines running dokku, of course)
So with dokku gone, the author still wants the features of heroku, and still doesn't work to peform all the operations work. So the author goes to Kubernetes and realises that there's operations work to do.
Guess what? Somebody still has to do the Operations part. If you don't want to do pay for some managed hosting (like, as per previous keyword, heroku) you'll have to do it yourself. Have fun.
Now, kubernetes is complex and the learning curve is steep. Kubernetes is designed to scale up to hundreds of nodes. Needless to say, complex tasks require complex tools.
Complexity has to be paid somehow. Either you pay in money (Heroku) or you pay with your own time and efforts.
Once again, there's nothing new under the sun: there's no free lunch.