"Move to the cloud" gets sold as a way to stop worrying about servers. For a small team, the honest version is more interesting: you stop maintaining hardware and start maintaining configuration. That trade is usually worth it — if you know what you're signing up for.
You trade servers for configuration
Nobody on your team will replace a failed disk again. Instead, someone needs to understand permissions, networking and the services you've chosen. Keep that configuration in code, in version control, reviewed like any other change — so your infrastructure is documented by default and reproducible on demand.
Deploys become boring — in a good way
With containers and an automated pipeline, a release becomes a merged pull request rather than an evening of nervous manual steps. The same image runs on a laptop, in staging and in production, which removes a whole category of "works on my machine" problems.
Pay for what you use — and watch what you use
Usage-based pricing is great when you're small and spiky. It's also how forgotten test environments quietly cost money for months. Tag resources by project, set budget alerts on day one, and review the bill monthly the way you'd review any other subscription.
Backups you have actually tested
Managed databases make automated backups easy to switch on. The step most teams skip is restoring one. Schedule a restore drill — into a separate environment — so you know how long recovery takes before you need it.
When a simple server is still right
A brochure site, an internal tool with a handful of users, a prototype you're testing with five customers — these often run perfectly well on a single, well-maintained server. The cloud earns its complexity when you need to scale, recover quickly or ship many times a week. Choose the setup your product needs this year, not the one you might need in five.