--- title: Have less stuff | daily.dev description: A developer at Cheddar advocates for radical minimalism in software stacks, arguing that teams consistently accumulate unnecessary tools, services, and... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Have less stuff | daily.dev og:description: A developer at Cheddar advocates for radical minimalism in software stacks, arguing that teams consistently accumulate unnecessary tools, services, and... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/lLFKPNl7e.png og:image:alt: Have less stuff og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Have less stuff **[RUBYLAND](https://daily.dev/sources/rubyla)** · 16 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer at Cheddar advocates for radical minimalism in software stacks, arguing that teams consistently accumulate unnecessary tools, services, and infrastructure ('stuff') driven by job security fears, personal attachment, and vendor lock-in rather than genuine need. The post walks through concrete decisions made at Cheddar — fusing a Go service into Rails, replacing Kubernetes with GCP autoscaling VMs, using database-backed job queues instead of PubSub, and storing configs in YAML files instead of building separate services. It argues that each piece of added infrastructure compounds maintenance burden, creates knowledge silos, and makes migrations harder. The author also notes that LLMs now lower the cost of building small custom solutions, removing the last honest justification for adopting heavyweight platforms. The conclusion urges engineering leaders to make adding new technology expensive and deliberate, not forbidden, but rigorously justified. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are some alternatives to using Kubernetes for deploying a Rails application? Autoscaling machine groups on a cloud provider (like GCP) can replace Kubernetes for many teams, with each service specifying its machine configuration and pulling the correct Docker image automatically. Credentials can be handled via encrypted environment variables decrypted with a single master key, avoiding the Helm, Istio, kustomize, and sidecar credential-import stack that self-managed Kubernetes tends to accumulate. _For teams weighing Kubernetes against simpler deployment options, daily.dev surfaces real-world tradeoffs like these._ ### What is Flipper and how does it compare to LaunchDarkly for feature flags in Rails? Flipper is a Ruby gem that provides feature flagging directly inside a Rails application, offering an alternative to adopting an external vendor product like LaunchDarkly. Using it avoids introducing a separate vendor dependency, additional pricing, and integration overhead for functionality that can be handled natively within the app. _Developers deciding between a feature-flag vendor and a lightweight library can track comparisons like this on daily.dev._ ### Why might a company choose JSON APIs instead of gRPC for internal services? A properly encoded JSON API can often do the same job as gRPC while avoiding protoc code generation, running two web servers in parallel, extra developer-machine dependencies, and forked bugs from hung services. JSON payloads are also visible directly in browser dev tools, simplifying debugging compared to protobuf-based gRPC traffic. _Teams deciding between gRPC and simpler JSON APIs can find comparisons like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [My 2026 Tech Stack is Boring as Hell \(And That is the Point\)](https://daily.dev/posts/my-2026-tech-stack-is-boring-as-hell-and-that-is-the-point--zw58f0sjv) · DEV · 175 upvotes · 10 comments - [Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction](https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g) · BirkeyCo · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [A prison of my own making](https://daily.dev/posts/a-prison-of-my-own-making-am6vv7ngp) · Lobsters · 27 upvotes · 3 comments - [Are We Overengineering Modern Infrastructure?](https://daily.dev/posts/are-we-overengineering-modern-infrastructure--tzvs357re) · Nordic APIs · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#rails](https://daily.dev/tags/rails), [#monolith](https://daily.dev/tags/monolith) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Have less stuff","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T20:58:39.053Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T18:41:18.741Z","description":"A developer at Cheddar advocates for radical minimalism in software stacks, arguing that teams consistently accumulate unnecessary tools, services, and...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--foaA6JGU--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2004","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--foaA6JGU--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2004","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"RUBYLAND","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"RUBYLAND","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/rubyla","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/rubyla"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"kubernetes,architecture,rails,monolith","timeRequired":"PT16M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"RUBYLAND","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/rubyla"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Have less stuff"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/have-less-stuff-llfkpnl7e#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What are some alternatives to using Kubernetes for deploying a Rails application?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Autoscaling machine groups on a cloud provider (like GCP) can replace Kubernetes for many teams, with each service specifying its machine configuration and pulling the correct Docker image automatically. 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