

And many folks have headless setups — raspberry pis, home servers, VPSs, etc. It’s kinda overkill to install a desktop environment on a headless box if the only reason you need it is so you can VNC into it for a simple task that could be done over ssh.
Certainly depends; and it depends on traffic volume!
Definitely something to consider; many folks (myself included) use a free/cheap VPS as the endpoint, and reverse proxy to home, via some VPN (WireGuard in my case). Works well, and lots of guides online.