If you’re not familiar with Tailscale it’s a very user-friendly “overlay network” that lets you securely connect all your devices no matter where they are over the internet.
No need to forward ports on your router to access your home network anymore. And no need to set up VPNs manually either. Just install Tailscale on all your devices and log in with Gmail or other providers.
Tailscale has official apps for Windows, Mac Android and iOS.
Thanks to a project called Trayscale we now have a GUI app for managing Tailscale on GNU/Linux as well.
But you need to pay for a VPS to use Headscale behind NAT. If you’re already paying for VPS it makes sense to use Headscale. But if you don’t then you have to consider the price of a VPS vs Tailscale’s free plan. Even if Tailscale eliminates that free plan, as long as they keep it around $4/mo they will still be a better option than a cheap VPS – assuming, again, that you don’t have a VPS and the only reason you’d get one is for this purpose.
That’s a complicated way to say:
Both comes at a cost, generally, but free options are available depending on your needs.