Having setup both, ive found syncthing to be much simpler. I would probably not go through the headache of setting up https and databases for next cloud again…

Use syncthing to sync and monitor your backups.

Syncthing backup server for your important files.

Cloudflare, namecheap, GoDaddy, domain.com, they all offer dns I think. Some of them are supported by Dyndns; you can find a list of supported providers.

So they profit from high-profile commercial users to subsidize the free tier (proxy, tunnels) and cheap DNS. What’s wrong with that? It’s not like we absolutely need those (proxy is nice but you can use vps, tunnels are also offered by ngrok).

Cloudflare

So it makes you IP less discoverable. However, if someone finds your IP randomly (through brute force), would you still be vulnerable? Or is it possible to only port forward to a static CF address so only CF can connect to you outside of your home network?

How is getting a domain protecting you IP? Wouldn’t your IP still be accessible even after you link it to a domain?