No Docker for starters. I played with Dokku a long time ago and remember it being decent at that time, but still too confusing for my skillset.

Now, I just build my app to an encrypted tarball, upload it to a secure bucket, and then create a short-lived signed URL for instances to curl the code from. From there, I just install deps on the machine and start up the app with systemd.

IMO, Docker is overkill for 99% of projects, perhaps all. One of those great ideas, poorly executed (and considering the complexity, I understand why).