I would like to know if automatic horizontal and/or vertical scaling is possible within Okteto, or if there are any limitations on it.
Yes, you should be able to configure HPA:
In Kubernetes, a HorizontalPodAutoscaler automatically updates a workload resource (such as a Deployment or StatefulSet), with the aim of automatically scaling the workload to match demand. Horizontal scaling means that the response to increased load is to deploy more Pods. This is different from vertical scaling, which for Kubernetes would mean assigning more resources (for example: memory or CPU) to the Pods that are already running for the workload. If the load decreases, and the number of Pods is above the configured minimum, the HorizontalPodAutoscaler instructs the workload resource (the Deployment, StatefulSet, or other similar resource) to scale back down.