Key Differences Between Proxy, Reverse Proxy, and Load Balancer

Feature	Proxy Server	Reverse Proxy	Load Balancer
Primary Purpose	Intermediary between client and server	Intermediary between client and backend servers	Distributes traffic across servers to optimize resource usage
Direction of Traffic	Client → Proxy → Server	Client → Reverse Proxy → Server	Client → Load Balancer → Server(s)
Key Use Cases	Privacy, content filtering, caching	Security, load balancing, SSL termination	High availability, scalability, redundancy
Security	Hides client’s identity from server	Hides server’s identity from clients	Improves system availability by balancing loads
Performance Focus	Caching and speed optimization	Load balancing, SSL offloading,  security	Traffic distribution and resource optimization
Example Tools	Squid Proxy, Charles Proxy,  HAProxy	Nginx, Apache HTTP Server (mod_proxy),  HAProxy, Traefik	Nginx, HAProxy, F5 BIG-IP, AWS ELB, Traefik