It's great that you wrote this up! One thing I have found with many open source/selfhostable projects is just how much running them yourself can vary. It can go from a simple compose file with everything included to having to dig for obscure services and piece together how they all form the whole. For example, I recently looked into self hosting Zotero. It is so under documented and complex that there is almost no wa…
I've come across this a lot too. But what I've found is that it mostly applies to open source projects that offer a hosted paid version, so it kind of makes sense they'll make the experience slightly worse than it could be (consciously or subconsciously), as it pushes people to their hosted solution. I don't particularly like it though.
Doesn't seem to be the case for Zotero specifically, but your comment reminded me that I've noticed this more often lately.