It was my go to dynamic DNS provider for years, but after noticing that it would take a good few seconds for my Jellyfin instance (among all the other stuff I self host) to load, I traced the issue down to duck DNS taking too long to resolve.
I switched to using ddclient in docker which updates my own domain’s records on Cloud flare with my dynamic IP. Now things load instantly.
Just shared in another comment, instead of doing this you can also use http://playit.gg/ to create a proxy without requiring an account and also not requiring port forwarding. They lease you a domain name, too
Jellyfin is free. Your own domain is like $10 a year or less.
Tailscale is also free.
Possibly a bit annoying for family members used to just logging in though. It’s an extra step.
There’s always other free options like duckdns, etc.
Duckdns is not stable enough. You’ll have downtime multiple times a year.
It was my go to dynamic DNS provider for years, but after noticing that it would take a good few seconds for my Jellyfin instance (among all the other stuff I self host) to load, I traced the issue down to duck DNS taking too long to resolve.
I switched to using ddclient in docker which updates my own domain’s records on Cloud flare with my dynamic IP. Now things load instantly.
It’s a free service, I think that’s fair.
If you don’t kind connecting directly with your IP address, you don’t even have to pay a domain. Been doing this for around 2 years
Just shared in another comment, instead of doing this you can also use http://playit.gg/ to create a proxy without requiring an account and also not requiring port forwarding. They lease you a domain name, too