nitrolife

SNAP in the recommended packages of the ubuntu-server metapackage. Ubuntu installs all recommended packages by default. So SNAP is in the server installation, moreover, it can’t even be simply removed without completely blocking in apt policy.

SNAP also doesn’t work well with old hardware because of compression. It’s ironic to recommend system riddled with incompatible compression to someone who explicitly wrote in a post that they would be using outdated hardware.

If you’re planning to use old hardware for hosting, don’t use Ubuntu. SNAP will kill performance.

So your choice is Debian.

P.S. VPS is already a Virtual Private Server and you can’t install ProxMox or any virtualization on it. If you want experiments, look into containers.

In any program, you still have to execute a challenge somewhere. No program will issue certificates without that. In the case of certbot, you can simply write a small post hook that will transfer the certificates to cloudflare.

Just don’t expose SSH to internet. It’s a complex protocol with many CVEs. And you realyy don’t need access to SSH from anywhere. Replace access from ineternet to a WireGuard tunnel that has almost zero attack surface area and properly configured iptables rules. And that’s it.

I think the problem has been slightly exaggerated. If you’re not hosting several dozen services, you can reduce your attack surface down to one Nginx server. For an even stricter setup, just enable mTLS.