I personally like to use a proxy for that like NPM (a handy dockerized nginnx reverse proxy setup). Not as secure as a VPN but I really like being able to access my stuff from anywhere I’m likely to be. I’ve combined it with a few other things to try and add simplicity (in use) and a little extra privacy by using Authentik for SSO. My main goal with the use of NPM though was to limit the number of ports I had punched.