Genuine question: I'm curious to know why you deploy with docker-compose and not Docker swarm (eg like described at https://dockerswarm.rocks/ ). I'm deploying the same kind of apps, and ended up with Swarm which seems to fit perfectly. I also found Kubernetes much too complex for my use case. Curious to know why we ended up with different outcomes.
Btw, I also use Compose, but for local runs (of other apps).
Docker Swarm uses compose files too.
Swarm is still used and maintained, though I agree it is much smaller than k8s.
But that's not a reason to dismiss it I think. I went for it because it's so easy to use that if I need to migrate off of it, I would not loose a lot of investment in it anyway.
I'm sure swarm would work for what I need and rationally its probably worth using, but I only trust docker as far as I could throw them and if I needed to really deploy I would probably just suck it up and figure out k8s.
Btw, I also use Compose, but for local runs (of other apps).