You could give a flat file CMS like Grav a shot. It’s basically like a wiki system for running a site. There’s also a slow burn up a hill of complexity where you do LAMP with PHP then you gravitate to things like express.js then Electron and then you roll poorly on your sanity check and end up naked in a bell tower.

Insert that bell curve meme where it’s wordpress on both sides.

For self hosting, pick up docker and understand that then go for portainer - it makes making mistakes in the arena super easy to scrub away. I suggest Synology NAS.