The start of my ladder looks much the same as yours except I jump from local files straight to single database SSR/SPA. Maybe slightly more complicated than a local app because you need auth, but when prototyping something I just use basic auth to start.
Chuck it up on a $5 DO box and you instantly get:
- Multidevice access, desktop and mobile (write mobile-first css and the tiny screens aren’t a problem)
- a UI that’s trivial to hack on (HTML and css are easy)
- likewise, a technical base that’s easy to extend. Drop in react, build out the api side and use it as a source for other projects, etc
All this assuming you have reasonably reliable network access, and even then you can build it as a clever PWA falling back to local storage if you need to (I think, prototyping that is still on my todo list)
Heck, save yourself $5/month and stick it on a raspberry pi at home.
It’s truly a golden sweet-spot for personal software tools. The only external dependency that irks me is needing a domain name.