I moved back from AWS (and AWS with docker for a while) to plain linux debian with fixed number of instances, and I am quite happy with the move.

But the app/services are not installed manually, instead I use debian packages. Every package will copy itself into a 'backup' directory during installation, so in case of of rollback I reinstall a copy from there. I have it working for 2 years this way without issues. Configuration is preloaded inside the packages.

-Must build an image before deploying and it takes time ... still the same ... -If I need quick hot fix RIGHT NOW, I can't just log in ... perhaps this is more related to having fixed instances vs auto scaling. -Must remember that launched containers do not close when ssh breaks ... + memory issues , disk issues... this is fixed and it is the biggest benefit for me.