I think I have to dispute the idea that hosting a web service like Pleroma "should be simple". It's a complex system with multiple dependencies and an external database server.
Of course, it would be nice if somebody made a full-featured fediverse server that was self-contained with no dependencies, did backups through a web UI, and was generally as easy as possible for someone without expertise to self-host. Pleroma isn't designed for that. Neither is Mastodon.
I've already tried deploying Pleroma on Fly.io using a Dockerfile and successfully did it with someone's guide. I was hoping to get away with the Fly.io's free tier but it's still a lot of work to maintain for something that should be simple. With Pleroma and it's derivatives there is not even an option to reimport "backups".