I used DuckDNS for ages to access Home Assistant but it was flakey. I use Google Assistant so I need external access.
Nginx was the real bastard, it made my head hurt every time I used it. So eventually I gave Cloudflared a go.
I followed a blog and managed to get it working the free, with a free domain.
Until a couple of weeks ago. It just stopped working. Thanks to a Reddit post I worked out that it was because my free domain used .ga and that was taken down because it was used by hackers and tricksters and odious people who were up to no good.
So I’ve bought a .com address for 5 years for around £0.65 a month through Cloudflare themselves. It was easy to set up and seems to be pretty solid, although I’ve only had it a couple days.
Is it only for your home assistant or you plan to host something else?
Just for Home Assistant, but I’m sure I can find other uses in the next 5 years. I I had a bunch of stuff I could access via DuckDNS and Nginx in the past but I either stopped using them or found the external access pointless and found a way to do it with HA instead