SSH. Strong, secure.
Use Zero Trust networking to provide access with no public IP, no inbound firewall changes, and, remain end-to-end encrypted.
See how it works.
Bonus: simple federated identity provider and optional multi-factor authentication. Tame that fleet of virtual machines in your VPC. Allow your vendors to have access as needed. Fear not that someone has created an ssh pub/private key and authorised it. Care not that the underlying machines have or have not central identity.