Honestly, you don’t *need* a reverse proxy server if your setup is tiny and you’re cool with managing ports and certs manually. But once you add more services, it becomes a nightmare.
I started with just a Pi-hole and Nextcloud, but then I added Jellyfin, Home Assistant... and suddenly I’m drowning in port numbers.
Nginx was my savior—centralized SSL, pretty URLs, and no more "was that 8080 or 8181?"
If you’re lazy (like me), check out Caddy. It auto-handles HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt. No YAML, just a simple config file.
I started with just a Pi-hole and Nextcloud, but then I added Jellyfin, Home Assistant... and suddenly I’m drowning in port numbers.
Nginx was my savior—centralized SSL, pretty URLs, and no more "was that 8080 or 8181?"
If you’re lazy (like me), check out Caddy. It auto-handles HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt. No YAML, just a simple config file.