Absolutely worth the effort to learn how to build a Docker image and put together bash scripts to push the image and update an ECS service. We have a base project which includes nginx and uwsgi set up to simply serve the Django app and static files on port 80.
Having an ECS Docker cluster with spare capacity greatly assists getting new projects up and running quickly, especially if we can run the test site under an existing domain managed in AWS. Then we can just add new rules on an existing ELB and piggy back on the SSL certificate.
With this workflow we spend the time getting a good image running locally (with local environments vars/secrets) and we know the deployment side is taken care of, and can be scaled if and when is needed. This also has the benefit of forcing dependencies and environments to be fully documented from the start (in the Dockerfile).
The next step, if the project gains traction is to move the Docker build/push/service update into CI space. We've moved away from ansible now largely, there's a use case for more complex setups for sure but am interested in K8 capabilities to help there.