I can get behind your pragmatic analysis. If it works, is low power, easy to manage, etc then that might be a good choice! One thing to possibly also consider: how future proof would you say it is?

If you do this as a learning experiment, then I'd suggest you self host even those you don't need and see if you can get to a quality of service similar to those services you pay for.

I've been using FreshRSS with Huginn for this, but not super happy with the setup, very versatile but too involved for my taste. Looking forward to see what recommendations you'll get here!