On the other hand, and unlike here on drag land, accelerating and then shutting down the engines while proceeding at full speed is possible in space.
You put the high-power components of the ship at the focus of a very long and narrow paraboloid with a highly reflective interior and a special absorptive and selectively emitting exterior. The whole ship will be refrigerated, with the radiator at the focus of the paraboloid. Then, all you have to do is to aim your thermal emissions in a direction your enemy isn't -- which is easy to do if your enemy doesn't have stealth.
Hence, stealth will exist, but primarily as a deterrent to keep your opponent from using stealth with 100% confidence.
Maybe the ring of a planet would work. But then the ship is at risk of being damaged by the ice and other things in the ring. And of course there are only few planetary rings compared to the rest of space.