> I've tried to stand up a server and the amount of configuration I had to do

I run my own server for 2 people. Using Prosody [0] took some config but wasn’t that hard. Easier than installing Arch, harder than installing Windows ;)

Nowadays, there is also Snikket [1] by the Prosody maintainer, which is essentially an opinionated all-in-one configuration setup based on Prosody, barely any config needed.

[0]: https://prosody.im/

[1]: https://snikket.org/