[b]"What’s the difference between nginx forward proxy and reverse proxy? Which one should I use?"[/b] Alternatively,

Yo, great question!

nginx forward proxy = your clients talk through it (like a VPN).
reverse proxy = your servers hide behind it (like a bouncer for your backend).

Need privacy? Forward proxy.
Scaling a website? Reverse proxy.

If you’re still stuck, DigitalOcean has killer tutorials on both. Helped me big time!