The more I am selfhosting the more ports I do open to my reverse proxy.
I also have a VPN (wireguard) but there are also 3 family members that want to access some services.
Open ports are much easier to handle for them.
How many users do you have and how many ports are open?
My case: 4 users (family)/ 8 reversed proxy ports
How many users and open ports have you?
I’ve never heard of NextCloud Cookbook before. Looking at its Github page, it says it’s “mostly for testers” and is unstable, so no point in even considering it for regular use at this point in time. Besides, I’m assuming you’d need to have your own instance of Nextcloud up and running to use it; I don’t use Nextcloud.
As for Grocy and other more mature alternatives (Tandoori also comes to mind), I think I initially went with Mealie because it had the most pleasant UI out of all of them. I liked it and found that it satisfied all of my requirements, so I just kept using it.