I am sure usecases are slightly different for these two. At least for me personally, "plug and play" offer was the key - so I could easily move stuff around and

I am sure usecases are slightly different for these two. At least for me personally, "plug and play" offer was the key - so I could easily move stuff around and not think about it. And it has browser access so non-tech people can use email/Nextcloud/etc. But perhaps Yunohost can be used to model what you have in mind, and once solidified, use it as a base to build VM with precise setup. Ansible is perhaps the closest you can get to declarative config... See "sovereign" on github - I migrated from it to Yunohost, as things kept breaking and I was looking hands off setup (hence Yunohost), but given that Sovereign is ansible-based - perhaps you can leverage it.