I'd say it is half-baked webmin. You can only use it with NetworkManager, and if you have an even remotely complex network setup for VMs, NetworkManager usually must be turned off, which makes Cockpit practically unusable. virt-manager [1] is way more powerful for those who like managing VMs with GUI.
I've not noticed any dependencies on NetworkManager when using Cockpit for VMs on Debian? My servers configure their networking using Debian's usual ifupdown, and NetworkManager isn't even installed!
[1] https://virt-manager.org/