It’s up to you how much you want to pay vs. how much time you are willing to sink into it. A synology is overpriced and underpowered, but you get a nice plug and play solution eith sane defaults. I went with that, fully knowing that price-wise, it’s not optimal. But I don’t enjoy tinkering as much as I used to.
This is only a thing in the US. In other parts of the world, iphone users have to adapt to whatever messenger platform has the most people in it (likely whatsapp or facebook messenger, maybe telegram)