ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕚0𝕤

You’re overthinking. Just host it on any server with a domain name and use let’s encrypt certs if you want to access it from anywhere. TLS offers good encryption, I don’t get how you need a VPN on top of that.

For local access only, I’d just host it on a machine over the lan, self-signed certs for TLS, hell I would even settle with http in this case. As for your VPN app preventing you to access a local resource on your lan, if true, you should get rid of that nonsense.

I tried this, it’s nice indeed. The layout will require some getting used to for me, but I like how it lets me add my remote server as sftp bookmark and open files from there pretty seamlessly, even videos.

You can pay for ad-free. It’s an affordable one time purchase and it supports the dev’s work.