sidecar pattern for microservices, is it helpful or just too much?

I've been seeing the sidecar pattern show up a lot lately, especially for handling things like logging, monitoring, and even service discovery in microservices. The basic idea is you put a separate container next to your main app container in the same pod. This sidecar takes care of all the shared infrastructure stuff, letting your main app container concentrate on the actual business logic. It sounds good on paper, a neat way to separate these concerns. But is it maybe too much hassle for smaller projects, or do the advantages actually beat the extra work? I'm curious about what you all think. When has this pattern really helped things, and when was it just overkill?