Reverse Proxy vs. API Gateway vs. Load Balancer🌐

A reverse proxy acts as a security guard, protecting backend servers by intercepting and routing incoming requests while also caching content. API gateways manage APIs, handling authentication, rate limiting, and data transformation for a simplified experience. Load balancers distribute traffic across multiple servers to prevent overload, ensuring high availability and scalability. Reverse proxies focus on security and routing, API gateways specialize in API management, and load balancers prioritize traffic distribution. Reverse proxies shield server IPs, API gateways manage authentication, and load balancers maintain uptime during traffic spikes. Using these tools helps create scalable and secure systems, enabling efficient backend management. Choose a reverse proxy for server protection and caching, an API gateway for API management and security, and a load balancer for handling traffic and ensuring uptime. Understanding these tools is critical for building scalable, secure, and efficient systems. Implementing these tools effectively optimizes performance, security, and reliability in web applications. Each tool addresses unique challenges in managing web traffic and server infrastructure.