It seems like there’s a lot of ways to go about this that may be overkill, so I’m curious which may avoid that.
Low maintenance in this context is aiming for moderate technical knowledge/setup, lower cost, and portability in case you need to migrate your site and so minimal hassle in that process.
Brand recognition if you’re in the market for a job relevant to the contents of your site or if you plan to run a blog.
Otherwise custom domain is really just vanity.