Need Some Tips/Direction On Server Hosting

Tried pposting this on the subreddit and automod removed and directed me here.

I originally posted on r/minecraft but was told I should post here as well.

As the title suggests I could use a little help with hosting a Java edition server for me and my friends as well as friends of friends – sky's the limit really.

I've hosted before both off my own machine and using the free service Aternos in the past, but now I'm able and willing to pay for good hosting for something more permanent, but I don't know which hosting service I should use and I definitely feel more picky since I'll be paying for it. With so many options it's a little daunting trying to figure figure out and compare, so I figured I'd ask the community what their takes are thinking that at the least it'll get me pointed in the right direction or significantly narrow down the search. What I'm looking for is...

* Affordability – doesn't have to be the cheapest but I don't want to be paying an unnecessary premium if I can avoid it.
* Reliability – Should be obvious, but I don't want to worry about server inconsistency every single week.
* Scalability – being flexible in upgrading and downgrading to suit my needs would be nice. If the server grows bigger than I expect, I don't want to hunt for a new hosting service all over again.
* Modability – I've used Bukkit in the past and while I plan to keep the experience mostly vanilla, it's nice to maybe try out a mod pack for a month and have plenty of QoL things like WorldEdit and permissions.

I'm mostly just hosting a for a smaller group of friends for the time being, around maybe 5 to 10 players concurrently online mostly from the US, and the only mods I expect to run or support would be Distant Horizons and administrative stuff for running and moderating the server efficiently and effectively. I don't really have a set budget or fully know what to expect for pricing, but if I can get away with $10 to $20 for a good server, I'll be happy – though I am flexible on that to a degree for sure.

It's been a awhile and as I said earlier I've used Bukkit in the past. But I also know Spigot is a thing and I think I've heard modded servers like Fabric and Forge can be useful even for vanilla worlds. So some guidance on which to use there would also be appreciated and some of the more essential plugins/mods for those like from what I recall in the past such as Essentials, Permissions, WorldGuard and WorldEdit.

From my own research and the original post, Modrinth and Pyro seem like the best options, though I am also curious in CloudNord, GGServers and Lagless. Paper also seems like the best server software to run as well, maybe even throw in Geyser in case I have friends that run/prefer Bedrock Edition. This seems to be where I'm leaning as of posting, but any tips, warnings, advice, et cetera would be appreciated nonetheless.