every other framework i have used had the concept of "environments" where you could have several configurations to choose from.
It's not hard to overcome. you can maintain a local .env file to set up the app in dev mode locally. but i feel like it would lbe clearer with multiple settings files.
I ended up deploying to @digitalocean #AppPlatform . I didn't shop around for options at all.
@digitalocean has a great document on how to deploy, and it works.