In fact, I think I never even connected the phone via USB since I started using Syncthing. Copying/moving to/from shared folder is amazingly both more ergonomic and much faster (I never learned, why moving files to Android device via USB is so insanely slow).
So I really don't know an alternative. It solved pretty much all my phone/PC sync needs. It also enables backuping the important stuff (I don't use Google for that, or course). Dropbox doesn't cut it either. I really don't imagine how would I use my phone w/o Syncthing, it's pretty much essential.
The truth is, the android app has existed for over 10 years now and it has never been good. It kinda mostly worked for some use cases, but always-on continuous sync on battery wasn't really one of them. And that's been true even before Google justifiably started restricting filesystem access in KitKat(!) 11 years ago.
If you are looking for an Android app that does syncing in the background well, I can highly recommend FolderSync.
FolderSync can do "on-demand" very well if you mean that you just want to tap a sync button to trigger it.
It's all those little convenience features that make KDE Connect a great tool for my needs. It's only the file transfer features of it that don't live up to my needs, but for that we've got SyncThing (and probably tons of other perfectly valid options that I've never tried, too). For continuous file sync / transfer, SyncThing has been just "set it and forget it" simple for me. It just "does the thing" and keeps on doin' it reliably. :)