I agree that data staleness is a limiting factor. Depending on your needs and technical proficiency you could use use their zimit service (limited in the number of links it follows). The zimit tool is oss and on github, so you can run the it yourself to keep the sites you are interested in up to date in your local kiwix
To expand with my personal experience, I self host a synapse server partly for the reason that i want my children (aged 8-14 now) to have a communication platform they can access to get ahold of me with out requireing a sim card. I do not federate, and i do not allow account sign ups. That keeps a pretty isolated instance while still allowing everyone on that homeserver to be able to talk to each other.
I help them get Element setup on each device. I dont think this is overly complicated, but i am sure i am a horrible judge of complexity… They have to enter the url of the server, then their password, then they need to scan a qr code/verify from an existing device. Or, they need to enter a second passcode to verify their identity. I help them keep those secrets in bitwarden, so imo, that complexity is an opportunity to explain some opsec and encryption!