> For me, having to maintain and secure it was too much work. A vps may have been easier in some ways, but harder in others.

For security you simply setup Tailscale and only allow private network to access your VPS -> 1h max to setup

Maintenance is running upgrades once a week/month -> 10mn

Depending on how critical your data is, you can rely on the provider's backup policy or setting up something as simple as a cron rsync on an external provider -> 2h to setup