You don't need SSH. Installing an SSH server to such a VM is a hold over from how UNIX servers worked. It puts you in the mindset of treating your server as a pet and doing things for a single vm instead of having proper server management in place. I would reconsider if offering ssh is an actual requirement here or if it could be better served by offering users a proper control panel to manage and monitor the vms.
what control panel is perfect for literally every type of project and has no edge cases
Could you suggest an alternative then? Something that is feature complete with SSH server, and also free.
Treating your server as pet may perfectly fine. Not everything has to be fully automated cloud cluster cattle.