If you don't want complexity of operators, you'll be probably OK with DB cluster outside of k8s. They're quite easy to setup, automate and there are straightforward tools to monitor them (eg. from Percona).
If you want to fully replicate AWS it may be more expensive than just paying AWS. But for most use cases it's simply not necessary.
If you want to fully replicate AWS it may be more expensive than just paying AWS. But for most use cases it's simply not necessary.