whatis reverse-proxy
Reverse Proxy
Also known as: nginx, Caddy, Traefik
A server like nginx or Caddy that receives client requests and forwards them to backend apps, handling TLS, routing, and caching.
What Is a Reverse Proxy?
A reverse proxy sits in front of your services on ports 80 and 443. It terminates HTTPS, routes app.example.com and wiki.example.com to different backends, and hides internal ports from the internet.
It is the standard way to host several self-hosted apps on one server. Caddy obtains Let's Encrypt certificates automatically; nginx and Traefik are also popular.
Example
app.example.com {
reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8080
}Learn more about Reverse Proxy
- Reverse Proxies Explained: Nginx, Caddy, and Traefik for Self-Hosters A reverse proxy sits in front of your services, routing incoming requests by hostname and terminating HTTPS in one place. Here is why every self-hosted setup grows one, and how the three big options differ.
- Nginx vs Apache vs Caddy: Choosing a Web Server How the three differ architecturally, why Apache is not actually slow any more, what Caddy automates, and which to pick for a given job.
- HAProxy: Load Balancing and Health Checking for Self-Hosted Services A reverse proxy built for distributing traffic across backends with real health checks, connection limits, and a statistics page that tells you what is actually happening.
Related tools
- Reverse Proxy Config Builder Write nginx or Caddy config for a self-hosted service, with TLS, WebSockets, and forwarded headers.