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Commonly confused · Networking Fundamentals

Forward Proxy vs Reverse Proxy: What's the Difference?

A forward proxy sits in front of clients and makes requests to the Internet on their behalf, often for filtering and caching. A reverse proxy sits in front of servers and receives requests from the Internet on their behalf, often for load balancing, TLS offload, and hiding back-end servers.

Forward Proxy

vs

Reverse Proxy

Full definition
Forward ProxyReverse Proxy
Acts on behalf ofClientsServers
LocationInside the client network, at egressIn front of web or application servers, at ingress
Client awarenessClients are configured to use it (or it is transparent)Clients usually do not know it exists
Common functionsContent filtering, caching, user anonymityLoad balancing, TLS termination, caching, WAF
HidesClient identities from serversServer identities from clients
ExamplesSquid, secure web gatewayNGINX, HAProxy, cloud application gateways
Remember it

Forward proxy speaks for the people going out; reverse proxy speaks for the servers being reached.

Exam tip

Scenario questions describe the goal (filter employee browsing vs distribute traffic to web servers) and ask which proxy fits. Reverse proxies often overlap with load balancer answers.

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