What's the difference between proxy vs reverse proxy? Which one should I use? Alternatively: Proxy vs

Great breakdown! You’ve got the basics right. Proxy vs reverse proxy really comes down to *who* you’re hiding—clients or servers.

For a personal VPN, yeah, a forward proxy (like Squid or Privoxy) is perfect. But if you’re running a web app, a reverse proxy (NGINX, Traefik) is a game-changer. It handles SSL termination, load balancing, and even DDoS protection.

Fun fact: Cloudflare is basically a giant reverse proxy for the internet.

Ever tried setting up NGINX as a reverse proxy? It’s stupid easy once you get the hang of it.