nextcloud VS DietPi

https://github.com/ReinerNippes/nextcloud if you want an Ansible playbook.

Not sure about relying in Cloudron alone. Maybe there defaults are okay, but with some manual tuning you might be able to disable features of NC that you don't use and sonyou could reduce the target surfacs. I'm just a hobbyist but still went the manual way for my public home server. Sadly the tutorials of Carsten Rieger are written in German. But there are also other alternatives like Ansible playbooks (https://github.com/ReinerNippes/nextcloud) or similar for a user friendly NC install. Maybe something from this section is also of interest for you: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#self-hosting-solutions

https://github.com/ReinerNippes/nextcloud Best non docker and painless thing you can do. Up and running in 20 minutes.

If you want to go in the rabbithole (specially docker and let's encrypted), you should check out the ansible script from Reiner Nippes: https://github.com/ReinerNippes/nextcloud

Personally I have a lot of experience with Ansible so used https://github.com/ReinerNippes/nextcloud which includes PostgreSQL and Redis with Nginx secured by LetsEncrypt. Backups can also be automated via Restic and sent offsite with Rclone.

DietPi is a lightweight Debian based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems, with the option to install desktop environments, too. It ships as minimal image but allows to install complete and ready-to-use software stacks with a set of console based shell dialogs and scripts.

The source code is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi

That's a good point, but the array of devices supported by the DietPi team is extensive: https://dietpi.com/

Before someone starts the usual yadda yadda about the RPi biger community, the OS not having long time support etc. I would repeat one more time: do not rely on board vendor supplied images; this is valid for pretty much all boards. Just go to Armbian or DietPi pages and you'll almost certainly find one or more images that work on your board and forums to discuss about them with very knowledgeable people.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

Those projects are well worth a contribution, as they don't have a giant like Broadcom behind them.

> bananapi do a lot of boards but their software story has been a bit poor

This is quite common with other board manufacturers too. I'd rather suggest to ignore completely their cobbled together distros, often also tainted by proprietary modifications, that become unmaintained in a few years, and see if they're among the many supported by Armbian or DietPi.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The full release notes can be found at: https://dietpi.com/docs/releases/v8_25/

RPi OS = diet pi https://dietpi.com/ - initial config via text file - SDcard burning out partially mitigated as writes log files to ram then flushes to SDcard reducing write cycles

You could also try very minimalistic distros like TwisterUI or DietPi which are most known for their use in the RasprebbyPi / SBC computers but which also have editions for desktop / laptop.