The more I am selfhosting the more ports I do open to my reverse proxy.
I also have a VPN (wireguard) but there are also 3 family members that want to access some services.
Open ports are much easier to handle for them.
How many users do you have and how many ports are open?
My case: 4 users (family)/ 8 reversed proxy ports
How many users and open ports have you?
I never open any ports to the open Internet other than the two my friend client uses.
For remote access I use a P2P VPN called ZeroTier leaving it always running on the Pi, and switching it on for the remote device when needed. It’s free for up to like 50 users and is very powerful, but dead simple.
free for 25 users