It's a bit rich calling it insane just because it's not immediately approachable for you. Not every project is aiming for mass-adoption and if you want to lower the barriers, that's on you to make happen.

Like a sibling commenter is already doing, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37802337

Consider pitching in time/money there (if welcome) instead of complaining when not everything is served to you on a silver platter.

A sqlite backend would be another thing that could reduce the complexity for a minimal OoB setup, I guess.

Truth the told, I wouldn't find it unfair to call the architecture/setup "insane". This is not one. If you've done any meaningful self-hosting in the past decade, it's as straightforward as it can be.