this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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What are your VPN recommendations for accessing self-hosted applications from the outside? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 4 days ago by waterproof@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Hello,

Some time ago, I started self-hosting applications, but only on my local network. So far, it's working fine, but I can't access them as soon as I go outside (which is completely normal).

For the past few days I've been looking for a relatively secure way of accessing my applications from outside.

I don't need anyone but myself to have access to my applications, so from what I've understood, it's not necessarily useful to set up a reverse-proxy in that case and it would be simpler to set up a VPN.

From what I've seen, Wireguard seems to be a good option. At first glance, I'd have to install it on the machine containing my applications, port-forward the Wireguard listening port and configure my other devices to access this machine through Wireguard

However, I don't have enough hindsight to know whether this is a sufficient layer of security to at least prevent bots from accessing my data or compromising my machine.

I've also seen Wireguard-based solutions like Tailscale or Netbird that seem to make configuration easier, but I have a hard time knowing if it would really be useful in my case (and I don't really get what else they are doing despite simplifying the setup).

Do you have any opinions on this? Are there any obvious security holes in what I've said? Is setting up a VPN really the solution in my case?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

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[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I use the built-in Wireguard feature of my Fritzbox to connect to my home network.

[–] waterproof@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Good point, I did not check if my router has already some built-in system that could let me connect to my home network with trusted devices from outside

[–] Bort@hilariouschaos.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

https://github.com/wg-easy/wg-easy

WG-Easy to run Wireguard

[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I would recommend this too. This was the easiest to setup. I only had an issue with docker compose which made the pihole not being accessible while on wireguard. Once I put the pihole and wg-easy on the same docker network it started working.

[–] lechongous@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's no magic bullet here. If you want good defense against bots you should use fail2ban and/or crowdsec. Geoblocking is also worth looking into. You will always have to open a port if you are selfhosting a VPN and will need to take aforementioned steps (or alternatives) to secure it. I believe Tailscale is a very good alternative for people who don't have time to do this as it does not (to the best of my knowledge) require you to expose a port.

I use Netbird (open source networking software from a German company) as it integrates well with Authentik and allows me to use the same SSO for VPN and most of my other services. Setting it up with Authentik and Nginx is a bit complicated but very well documented in my opinion. I do not have a positive experience of the official Android client but Jetbird is a nice alternative. Setting up DNS servers and network routes through peers is quite easy. Enrollment is also a breeze due to the Authentik integration.

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[–] communism@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

In that case, wireguard. I only occasionally need to access a service that's not exposed to the internet, so I use ssh -L, but that would be quite inconvenient for your own use case.

I know tailscale exists but I've never used it, only tried wireguard on its own. Maybe there's some huge benefit to using it but wireguard worked fine for me.

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world -4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

My Asus router has a a few nice ones

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago
  • pretty much any modern asus routers with a mesh setup and if you run merlin it has more security features.
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