I use such a computer to expose services from my home server. You can do this using tailscale or even rathole. (Sadly, I don't have access to the router to port forward packets to my home server directly.)
Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge, Tailscale (for exit nodes, among other things)
Other stuff I want to host but not yet: Immich, Vaultwarden, Hister, Archibebox, CopyParty
Can you elaborate?
I don't understand why you would need Tailscale, for example -- shouldn't your VPS have a static address to which you can reach out from your home and also connect remotely, making Tailscale superfluous?
- They're not using a VPS, they're using a server hosted inside their house
- Lots of ISPs use CGNAT which means you can't always have direct access, especially on mobile. Tailscale solves that via DERP (https://tailscale.com/docs/reference/derp-servers)
- Static public IP addresses for ingress cost money from the cloud provider, they're not cheap either
- Having a public IP makes the ports open to attackers, using Tailscale the attacker has to hack your tailnet before they can hack your server
- You have to buy a DNS name for your public IP, you don't need one if you use Tailscale thanks to MagicDNS
- Tailscale has a bunch of nice features like Let's Encrypt integration, OAuth support, Tailscale SSH, etc. that make the experience quite nice overall
> You have to buy a DNS name for your public IP
What are you talking about?
If you want TLS for your websites/webapps you're gonna need a DNS name to get a cert
No, Let’s Encrypt provides IP address certificates for free.
Interesting, apparently they added that as a feature a few months ago.
https://letsencrypt.org/2026/01/15/6day-and-ip-general-avail...
I use the VPS mainly to route traffic from my in-house server.
I am sure there is a way to avoid tailscale, but I like putting it on everything I can. It is pretty easy to use.