Proxy vs Reverse Proxy
Both proxy and reverse proxy are servers that are in between clients or servers. Each have different responsibilities and use cases.
Proxy server
It can be called also Forward Proxy. It is a server that acts on behalf of clients. When a requests is made, proxy server gets the requests and forwards to the destination server.
Some common use cases of proxy servers are:
- Serve anonymity: hide the real IP address of the client.
- Cache: see if the request can be served from cache. If yes, server, if not, forward the request to the destination server.
- Access control: restrict access to certain resources based on rules.
- Security: filter requests and responses to protect clients from malicious content.
- Accessing geo-restricted content: allow clients to access content that is restricted in their region by routing requests through a server located in a different region.
Reverse Proxy
Reverse proxy is a server that is in front of your networks, capturing requests from clients and forwarding them to the appropriate backend servers.
Some common use cases of reverse proxy servers are:
- Security: protect backend servers from direct exposure to the internet, filtering requests and blocking malicious traffic (like DDoS attacks).
- Load balancing: distribute incoming request across several backends servers, avoiding overloading a single server.
- Cache: static/dynamic content can be cached (specially assets), reducing latency, load and improving performance.
- Authentication: handle authentication and authorization for backend servers, centralizing access control.
Some common reverse proxy servers are Nginx, HAProxy, Traefik and Apache HTTP Server.