I am trying to avoid having to having an open port 22
If you’re working locally you don’t need an open port.
If you’re on a different machine but on the same network, you don’t need to expose port 22 via your router’s firewall. If you use key-based auth and disable password-based auth then this is even safer.
If you want access remotely, then you still don’t have to expose port 22 as long as you have a vpn set up.
That said, you don’t need to use a terminal to manage your docker containers. I use Portainer to manage all but my core containers - Traefik, Authelia, and Portainer itself - which are all part of a single docker compose file. Portainer stacks accept docker compose files so adding and configuring applications is straightforward.
I’ve configured around 50 apps on my server using Docker Compose with Portainer but have only needed to modify the Dockerfile itself once, and that was because I was trying to do something that the original maintainer didn’t support.
Now, if you’re satisfied with what’s available and with how much you can configure it without using Docker, then it’s fine to avoid it. I’m just trying to say that it’s pretty straightforward if you focus on just understanding the important parts, mainly:
docker compose
docker networks
docker volumes
If you decide to go that route, I recommend TechnoTim’s tutorials on Youtube. I personally found them helpful, at least.