Docker image layering and nightlies for the heavier installs has worked pretty well for me. Dependencies from things like npm, composer etc are all build time still but more of the base stuff is on a weekly build cycle. We just do notifications if the nightlies fail to manually resolve it which is very very seldom
Qbittorrent via a container and web UI on my NAS, lets me use it as a backend for *arrs as well as anything else, just have tag based directories for it so Software goes into one folder and TV movies etc in their respective folders.
I personally like the setup a lot since I can always be a seeder even well after my ratio is hit.
slskd hooked up to this as well to share everything music wise, gives me a nice way to reconcile stuff Lidarr can’t find and shares it all back for anyone to browse so hopefully helps someone downloadv something they’re searching for a FLAC of
nzb360 on Android for management as needed, it hooks into Qbittorrent easily and gives me a nice place to do some quicker tasks for my overall infra