Nextcloud Docker compose https://hub.docker.com/_/nextcloud/
I don’t do much maintenance on my nextcloud image either. I spend a lot of time setting it up on bare metal because I didn’t know docker compose existed but it’s very popular nowadays. With docker compose you don’t have to setup a lot either. It didn’t break for me once in the past years.
What’s wrong with nextcloud’s S3 object storage?
Why not start with an account? You do not need to run a server to be int the fediverse. It’s enough for now if they’ve got a or multiple accounts and actively use it. Share the latest papers via that account. Provide news. Link to articles etc. That’s good enough for the beginning.