Have you ever struggled with the automated update feature of WordPress, not being able to use it because it requires FTP? FTP is by design a “not really secure” protocol, so if it can be avoided, avoid it. There is a plugin called SSH SFTP Updater Support which enables updates via SSH/SCP.
When using it I encountered an issue with the php_time_limit being to short (30 seconds); so I temporarily set it to 0 (unlimited) via a .htaccess file.