self hosting a now 300gb database using mariadb, been in production for 14 years with almost no downtime and very good performance. i do not DBA all day, i do it maybe once a year to do a version upgrade.

this perception of having to be special or only focus on sysadmin stuff for self hosting is incredible. cloud providers have managed diamond cartel levels of consumer propaganda in the tech sphere, its pretty amazing once you notice it.

It's not perception, it's empirical evidence. Every thing I've set up myself is another thing I'm responsible for maintaining. Each and every one of them generates some baseline of stress, because there's only so many things I can juggle in my head at once. I'm relieved when a concentrated economic effort allows me to throw money at something I'd rather replace with doing something else, something I like doing.

At the early startup stages, you barely have to touch it. It'll just merrily run without intervention for months.

At the stage where you need to spend a few hours a month dealing with it, you can afford to hire a DBA.