A contrary proxy sits in front of a web server and receives all the requests earlier they reach the origin server. Information technology works similarly to a forward proxy, except in this case information technology's the web server using the proxy rather than the user or client. Reverse proxies are typically used to enhance performance, security, and reliability of the web server.

For example, you can have a non-WordPress site hosted at case.com domain on Server A and take its web log running on WordPress at instance.com/weblog URL hosted on Server B. Y'all can achieve this by adding a reverse proxy for the server hosting your primary site. You can configure the opposite proxy to redirect requests to the blog to a different server (e.g. a managed WordPress host like Kinsta).

In this article, you'll learn the basics of opposite proxy servers, how they work, what their major benefits are, and how you tin use them to speed up and secure your WordPress site.

Excited? Let's start!

What Is a Opposite Proxy?

To understand what a contrary proxy server is, you demand first to know its role and get familiar with all its related terms.

When y'all browse the spider web normally by entering a domain name or clicking a link, your browser/device connects to the website's server straight and starts downloading its resources.

Infographic showing how internet is browsed typically
How browsing on the internet works usually

If you desire to anonymize your IP address from the websites yous visit, then you can use a proxy server to send all your requests to information technology kickoff. It'll forward your requests to the DNS resolver and then download the website'southward resources from its origin server.

Later, it'll laissez passer on those resources to your device. This is called a forrard proxy.

Infographic showing how a forward proxy works
How a forrad proxy server works

You're completely hidden from the website as information technology thinks your request is originating from the forward proxy.

Autonomously from enhancing user privacy, a forrad proxy is mainly used to bypass geographical content restrictions. For example, if you lot want to watch a video that'south blocked in your region, you can utilise a forward proxy with an IP address on which the video is available to view.

A frontward proxy works nigh the same way as a Virtual Individual Network (VPN), but they're distinct technologies with unique use cases (they tin sometimes overlap though).

Opposite Proxy Server vs Forward Proxy Server

A opposite proxy server acts as a front for the origin server to maintain anonymity and heighten security, just like how a user/customer tin can utilise a forrard proxy to attain the same. It ensures that no user or customer communicates directly with the origin server.

Infographic showing how a reverse proxy works
How a reverse proxy server works

The divergence between a frontward proxy vs a opposite proxy is minor, merely they piece of work differently.

Both can work together as in that location'south no overlap between their functioning. Typically, users/clients utilise a frontwards proxy, while origin servers use a reverse proxy.

Infographic showing the differences between Forward Proxy vs Reverse Proxy
Forward Proxy vs Reverse Proxy servers

Since a server admin tin can control how the reverse proxy works, you can use it to enable many useful features.

We'll list all its benefits after in this post.

Why Employ a Reverse Proxy?

Many businesses, especially large enterprises, utilize bespoke websites that are tailor-made to their unique needs and aren't running on WordPress. Some examples include bank and insurance websites.

In other cases, a business may host their site on an external service that doesn't allow them to install whatsoever external software (e.one thousand. WordPress). Usually, these are small to mid-sized retailers using an ecommerce platform such as Shopify.

Since WordPress has robust CMS features, many businesses, including large enterprises with bespoke websites, may prefer to host their blogs using WordPress.

One way to get around this problem is to install WordPress on the principal website'due south subdomain and structure the navigation menus such that users can switch easily between the main website and the web log.

Since subdomains behave as a unique domain, it can bear on your site'southward SEO. Fifty-fifty though Google treats both subdomains and subdirectories equally, it takes more than effort to optimize a website for search engine rankings if it'southward hosted on a subdomain than if it'southward hosted in a subdirectory.

Two approaches to host an alternative website under the same domain name
Two approaches to hosting blogs on a website

Google has reaffirmed that information technology treats both subdomains and subdirectories as, merely some SEO experts disagree with it. And fifty-fifty if information technology doesn't affect the site'south SEO, a site hosted in a subdirectory is simply easier to maintain.

That'south why you can use a opposite proxy to redirect requests to the site'south web log hosted on a separate server. For case, a bank can host their main website on their servers securely, but they can also host their WordPress-powered web log separately on a managed WordPress host similar Kinsta.

An example of a reverse proxy server use case
An example of a opposite proxy use case

Unifying two dissimilar sites under a unmarried domain name is one of the key advantages of using a contrary proxy. Information technology helps brands keep their sites organized, professional, and maintain credibility.

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Benefits of Using a Reverse Proxy

As well the in a higher place use case, reverse proxies also grant many other benefits. The section below discusses some of their major advantages.

Load Balancing

A single origin server cannot handle all the incoming traffic for a website with millions of daily unique visitors. In these cases, yous can distribute the traffic smartly among a puddle of many servers. Usually, all the servers will host the same content to eliminate a single bespeak of failure, making the website more than reliable.

A reverse proxy is a great way to gear up this upward as it can receive the incoming traffic before information technology reaches the origin server. If the origin server is overloaded or fails completely, it tin distribute the traffic to other servers without affecting the site functionality.

Reverse proxies can likewise direct the incoming requests to several servers, with each server performing a specific function it'south optimized for. The reverse proxy can and then gather responses from all the servers and deliver them to the client.

Since we use nigh of the popular opposite proxies primarily for load balancing, they're as well referred to as Load Balancers.

Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB)

GSLB is an advanced load balancing method for distributing website traffic among many servers placed strategically around the world. It's typically done via anycast routing technique, where the reverse proxy picks the server node based on the fastest travel time betwixt the client and the server.

Not only does GSLB increase the site'southward reliability and security considerably, it also reduces latency and load times, thereby enhancing user feel. You can use GSLB with other network optimization techniques such as Spoon Feeding to free upwards the origin servers' computational resources even more.

Though you lot can set up upwardly Global Server Load Balancing manually on your server, it'due south usually taken care of by dedicated CDNs such as Cloudflare and KeyCDN (which also powers Kinsta CDN). Kinsta serves all the websites hosted with it through a Load Balancer powered past Google Cloud Platform.

Enhanced Security

Reverse proxies tin can cloak the IP address and other characteristics of origin servers. Thus, your website'due south origin server can maintain its anonymity ameliorate, increasing its security significantly.

Since the reverse proxy will receive all the traffic before information technology reaches the main server, whatever attackers or hackers will find information technology harder to target your website with security threats such as DDoS attacks.

You lot can employ a strict firewall to harden the opposite proxy with tighter security confronting mutual cyber attacks. Without a reverse proxy installed, it is difficult to remove malware or start takedowns.

A reverse proxy similar HAProxy can add basic HTTP access hallmark to a web server that doesn't have it enabled. You lot tin can also use a reverse proxy to add together centralized authentication for diverse types of requests.

Powerful Caching

You lot can use a reverse proxy for spider web dispatch purposes by caching both static and dynamic content. This can reduce the load on the origin server, resulting in a faster website.

For instance, if your origin server is in the U.s. and a user from Europe visits your website, then you tin serve a cached version of your site from a reverse proxy server in Europe. Since the reverse proxy is closer to the user than the origin server, the website volition have less time to load, making it perform superbly.

Varnish and Nginx FastCGI are prominent examples of reverse proxies that are used for caching web content. If your site is hosted with Kinsta, you don't have to worry about caching as Kinsta takes care of all the caching legwork for you.

Superior Compression

Server responses use up a lot of bandwidth. Compressing server responses (e.g. with gzip) before sending them to the customer can reduce the amount of bandwidth required, speeding up server responses over the network.

A contrary proxy is platonic to compress server responses every bit information technology sits in between the origin servers and the client.

Optimized SSL Encryption

Encrypting and decrypting SSL/TLS requests for each customer tin can be highly taxing for the origin server. A reverse proxy can take upwards this task to free up the origin server's resource for other important tasks, like serving content.

Another reward of offloading SSL/TSL encryption and decryption is to reduce latency for clients that are geographically distant from the origin server.

You can also opt for a reverse proxy with specialized SSL/TLS dispatch hardware to optimize this job even further. Such a reverse proxy is called an SSL/TLS termination proxy. Some servers like Varnish do non support SSL/TSL protocols, and so an SSL/TSL termination contrary proxy can help secure the traffic passing through them.

Better A/B Testing

About A/B testing tools crave you to use external JavaScript libraries to load their functions. However, loading 3rd-party scripts tin can slow down your page load times and create a choppy experience for users.

Instead, you lot can apply a reverse proxy to create two split up flows at the server level itself. For example, you can use Nginx's split_clients or gummy road methods to control traffic redirection.

You can refer to tutorials on Nginx and freeCodeCamp to learn more about performing A/B testing with a reverse proxy.

Monitoring and Logging Traffic

A reverse proxy captures whatsoever requests that become through information technology. Hence, you can utilise them as a central hub to monitor and log traffic. Fifty-fifty if you utilise multiple web servers to host all your website'south components, using a reverse proxy will brand information technology easier to monitor all the incoming and outgoing data from your site.

The Most Pop Opposite Proxies

As per W3Techs, almost 83% of the websites utilize no reverse proxy services that they monitor.

Statistics of reverse proxies used by websites
Statistics of reverse proxies used by websites (Source: W3Techs.com)

Of the 17% websites that apply a reverse proxy (listed higher up), you'll find that nigh of them are CDNs. That'south because nigh contrary proxies hibernate their existence by default equally a safety precaution. Hence, you lot cannot rely on website monitoring services like W3Techs to notice which reverse proxies are the almost popular ones.

From our research and experience, the about popular contrary proxies in utilise today are:

Nginx

Nginx is an open source web server that tin can besides serve as a reverse proxy. Apart from being used to host websites, it's besides one of the most widely used reverse proxy and load balancing solutions. As per Netcraft, over 479 million spider web servers were using Nginx in December 2019, making it the leader in the web server market place share.

Web server market share of all sites as per Netcraft
Web server market share of all sites (Source: Netcraft)

Nginx provides all the reverse proxy benefits discussed above, plus more. Information technology improves web performance, security, reliability, and scalability. You tin can configure Nginx using its configuration file, which is also hot reloadable. At Kinsta, Nginx reverse proxy is 1 of several premium add ons you lot tin use.

But you can also apply Nginx Plus, a commercial offering, to go admission to API-based configuration options and other features suitable for large enterprise websites.

Kinsta powers all its websites with Nginx. Information technology has ranked in Review Signal's Pinnacle Tier web hosting status in every category it has competed in. Some other major companies that utilize Nginx are MaxCDN, Cloudflare, and Netflix.

Setting up Nginx as a basic opposite proxy is simple. Nginx also provides you with various directives to customize your server's contrary proxy as per your requirements. Nosotros'll discuss how to practise this in a after section. If y'all're a Kinsta customer, you'll also learn how to use a contrary proxy for websites hosted with Kinsta in the same section.

Varnish

Varnish is an open up source HTTP reverse proxy with a congenital-in cache engine. Information technology'southward designed primarily for loftier-traffic websites that serve dynamic content. You can also use Varnish as a load balancer, a web app firewall (WAF), and an edge authentication and authorization server.

It works on all mod versions of Linux and FreeBSD, existence used mainly as a front for Nginx or Apache spider web servers. Varnish's powerful and highly flexible Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) lets you define various features such as handling HTTP requests, caching, and connecting to one or more web servers.

For this reason, many CDNs use Varnish as their primary foundation for delivering content swiftly.

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Varnish besides supports Edge Side Includes (ESI), a language that helps you to reuse sections of 1 web page in other web pages. If your website uses a lot of repeated content in unlike pages, ESI can help you speed up your site's page load times past caching ofttimes used sections.

You can extend Varnish with its various modules (VMODs). Head to Varnish's official tutorial to larn how to set up Varnish as a reverse proxy for WordPress.

Apache Traffic Server

Apache Traffic Server is an open source caching proxy server. It's popular for its fast, scalable features. It was a commercial product developed past Yahoo! long ago, but they made it open source and donated it to the Apache Foundation for maintenance.

Several major content networks and CDNs like Comcast, Akamai, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Apple tree use Apache Traffic Server to power their technology.

You tin likewise employ Apache HTTP Server (Apache httpd), an HTTP server daemon, to set up a contrary proxy on your spider web server. Apart from acting as a basic spider web server, information technology likewise helps yous serve static and dynamic content to users. You'll larn how to prepare Apache every bit a reverse proxy later in this article.

HAProxy

HAProxy is an open source reverse proxy and load balancer. It'southward designed to integrate with most existing spider web server architectures, including Linux distributions and deject platforms. Similar to Nginx, HAProxy uses an event-driven I/O model and supports splitting requests across multiple worker processes.

For HTTP requests, HAProxy performs exceptionally well even under heavy loads. Some of the highest traffic websites on the internet such as Airbnb, Reddit, Instagram, Stack Overflow, Tumblr, GitHub, and Imgur utilise HAProxy to deliver their websites efficiently.

Discussing how to implement HAProxy is beyond the scope of this commodity, but you can refer to their documentation to understand how it works.

Notation: Traefik and Envoy are 2 other open source alternatives to HAProxy. They're both high-performant opposite proxies and load balancers with many advanced features.

Some other popular reverse proxies are AWS Elastic Load Balancer, GLBC, DigitalOcean Load Balancer, and Google Cloud Load Balancer. For an exhaustive list of the top reverse proxies and load balancers in utilize today, you lot can check out Stackshare.io.

Reverse Proxy: Use Cases for WordPress Sites

There are mainly iii use cases for employing a reverse proxy for WordPress sites, including sites hosted at Kinsta.

Loading a main site vs a proxied site
Loading a 'Principal Site' vs a 'Proxied Site'

We'll only use Nginx for this instance, equally it's the well-nigh popular opposite proxy used for WordPress sites today. But the same basic principles will apply to other reverse proxies.

Reverse proxies are often challenging to install, configure, and support. For this reason, Kinsta offers a $fifty monthly addition subscription for each reverse proxy that you need help with setting up. You can reach out to Kinsta's back up team for further details.

ane. Primary and Proxied Sites Hosted on the Same Server

If both the main site and the proxied site are hosted on the same server, the main site can run on a WordPress installation, while a separate WordPress installation powers the proxied site.

As yous'll have admission to both the sites and their shared spider web server, you can set upwardly the reverse proxy rules for the main site, and so configure the proxied site to load from the reverse proxy.

If you're hosting both these sites at Kinsta, then yous tin accomplish out to Kinsta's back up team and request them to set upwardly the contrary proxy for you. Here's the procedure you demand to follow:

  • Make sure that both the main site and the proxied site are hosted at Kinsta. If they're non, so yous can migrate both sites to Kinsta's environment, either manually or by submitting a migration request.
  • Open a support ticket and provide Kinsta's support team with a clear description of the domain configuration. I'll accept approximately 1 business solar day to set up the reverse proxy.
  • Kinsta will set upwards the relevant reverse proxy rules on the main site and configure the proxied site to load over the reverse proxy.

Here are the standard Nginx contrary proxy directives used past Kinsta to load a subdirectory site over a reverse proxy:

          location ^~ /subfolder/ { proxy_pass http://subfolder.domain.com; proxy_set_header Ten-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header 10-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; }        

In the above code, you need to replace the /subfolder/ placeholder with the actual subdirectory name (eastward.thousand. /blog/ , /shop/ ). Plus, the http://subfolder.domain.com subdomain should match the URL used to indicate the reverse proxy towards the proxied site.

The location directive includes caret and tilde symbols (^~) to tell Nginx that if it finds the cord defined, it should stop searching for further matches and use the directives listed here. Learn more virtually Nginx's reverse proxy directives in its documentation.
Adjacent, you demand to configure the proxied site to load over the reverse proxy. Here are the standard steps followed by Kinsta to configure the proxied site:

  • Create a subdirectory at the path where the proxied site is loaded from. All the proxied website'southward files are moved to this subdirectory.
  • Update the web server'southward configuration files to define the new subdirectory every bit the root directory for the proxied site. In addition, you need to add together a rewrite rule to remove the subdirectory from the asking URI for each incoming request.
  • Update all URLs in the proxied site'south database to match the alive site URLs (e.grand. example.com/blog ).
  • Edit the proxied site's wp-config.php file with the $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] definition, pointing it to the main site's URL.
  • If y'all're using an SSL certificate, and so yous need to define strict rules in the wp-config.php file to avoid redirection loops.

Note: A proxied site cannot create URLs that duplicate the same subdirectory under which the proxied site loads. For case, a proxied site at example.com/weblog cannot create a page or directory at example.com/web log/weblog .

ii. Simply the Proxied Site Hosted on Your Server

If you lot just accept access to the proxied site and its web server, then you need to contact the server admin of the principal site and inquire them to gear up the opposite proxy rules for yous.

To do that, you must follow the aforementioned steps outlined to a higher place, except in this instance y'all must configure the rules on two dissimilar servers.

To host your proxied site with Kinsta, add together a domain to the site which will signal to the reverse proxy. Unremarkably, subdomain suits this purpose (e.g. blog.example.com ) to load the proxied site over a subdirectory link (e.g. example.com/blog ).

After setting up your proxied site on Kinsta, y'all can contact Kinsta back up team to configure the proxied site to load over a reverse proxy. At this fourth dimension, our support team will crave the real IP of your server in order to complete the setup procedure in a way that counts visits correctly. If you are unable to provide a static IP due to dynamic IP restrictions from sure providers (due east.m. AWS CloudFront), your program will be converted to a comparable bandwidth-based programme instead.

Lastly, setting up the reverse proxy on your server falls outside the scope of Kinsta support every bit only the server admin can accept care of it.

three. Only the Main Site Hosted on Your Server

If yous only have access to the primary site and its web server, and so you should ready the opposite proxy and configure its rules to load the proxied site from an external host. Installing and configuring the proxied site to load over the opposite proxy is the responsibility of the secondary server's admin.

Having your master site hosted at Kinsta volition grant yous admission to Kinsta'southward support squad. Yous can heighten a support ticket with them to add together the standard reverse proxy rules listed before in this commodity. You tin can likewise have any additional customizations added to those rules if needed.

In this scenario, you're fully responsible for configuring the proxied site to load it properly over the reverse proxy.

How to Set Nginx as a Opposite Proxy

If Kinsta doesn't host your website and yous manage your servers, so you lot must set upwardly the opposite proxy yourself and configure information technology to point towards the proxied site.

Depending on your spider web server'southward operating system, you can install Nginx differently. For Linux distributions, you can use diverse Nginx packages based on your Linux distribution's version.

In the instance below, we've installed the chief site at example.com domain name, while the proxied WordPress site is installed at web log.domain.com subdomain. They're both powered past Apache on a web server running on Ubuntu xviii.04. Nosotros'll install and configure Nginx every bit a contrary proxy on the main server.

To begin, admission your server's last via SSH. Then utilize the apt-get control to update your distribution's packages listing and install Nginx on your web server.

          sudo apt update sudo apt install nginx        

Adjacent, yous demand to configure Nginx to proxy requests for domains hosted on Apache. To do that, create a new virtual host file. Here, I'm using the nano editor to add the code, but yous tin can utilise any code editor of your choice.

          sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-bachelor/instance.com.conf        

So set Nginx directives to forward requests to Apache by adding the following server {...} and location blocks:

          server { listen      80; server_name example.com world wide web.instance.com; alphabetize       alphabetize.php; root        /var/www/case.com/public    # fallback for index.php location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string; }location /blog { proxy_pass http://blog.domain.com;proxy_http_version                 i.1; proxy_cache_bypass                 $http_upgrade;  # Proxy headers proxy_set_header Upgrade           $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection        "upgrade"; proxy_set_header Host              $host; proxy_set_header Ten-Real-IP         $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Ten-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host  $host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port  $server_port;  # Proxy timeouts proxy_connect_timeout              60s; proxy_send_timeout                 60s; proxy_read_timeout                 60s; }        

In the code above, I'one thousand defining a subdirectory instance.com/blog link that will exist served by the Apache server. Ensure that yous use your proxied website'southward public IP address (or URL) in the proxy_pass directive. In my instance, my proxied website is hosted on the blog.domain.com subdomain.

Note: Ensure that the proxied website is installed and ready to be served before you make any changes.

You lot can learn more almost all the contrary proxy directives used here in Nginx'due south detailed index of directives.

Save the virtual host file. So activate the new virtual host by creating a symlink for the files named example.com.conf in both the /etc/nginx/sites-available and the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directories.

          sudo ln -south /etc/nginx/sites-available/instance.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/instance.com.conf        

Afterwards that, exam Nginx for any configuration errors.

          sudo nginx -t        

If there are no errors, reload Nginx to enforce the changes.

          sudo systemctl reload nginx        

You lot've successfully prepare Nginx to work as a reverse proxy at present. To confirm this, y'all tin can use the phpinfo() function to check the PHP variables loaded when you visit your proxied site.

Under the SERVER_SOFTWARE and DOCUMENT_ROOT PHP variables, yous'll come across that Apache serves this domain on the backend. Just HTTP_X_REAL_IP and HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR PHP variables confirm that Nginx was used as a opposite proxy to forward the requests.

Yous can speed upward serving your WordPress site over Nginx past using the fastcgi_cache and ngx_cache_purge modules. While the first module will enshroud your site, the 2nd module will automatically purge the cache based on specific events (e.grand. publishing or editing a WordPress mail/folio).

You lot can apply the Nginx Enshroud Controller WordPress plugin to control Nginx's proxy server cache directly from your WordPress admin dashboard. If y'all're using a WordPress Multisite installation, then you can use the Nginx Helper plugin to do the same.

Check out Nginx's main documentation and Nginx WordPress setup guide for a detailed overview of how to piece of work with Nginx and WordPress.

How To Prepare Apache as a Contrary Proxy

Before you begin, make certain you have ii websites up and running at case.com and blog.domain.com . The first website may or may not be a WordPress site, but the second 1 should be a WordPress site as it's used primarily to load the root domain's blog at instance.com/blog subdirectory link.

Kickoff configuring Apache by opening your server'due south terminal via SSH and enabling Apache's proxy module.

          sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_http ssl        

Running the to a higher place command volition nigh likely restart Apache to reload the newly defined directives.

Side by side, edit your main server'southward virtual hosts file to create a reverse proxy. Here'due south the code you need to add:

          <VirtualHost *> DocumentRoot /var/world wide web/app/public SSLProxyEngine On    ProxyRequests off ProxyPass /blog http://blog.domain.com ProxyPassReverse /web log  http://weblog.domain.com </VirtualHost>        

The ProxyPass directive will create a reverse proxy for the paths specified, while the ProxyPassReverse directive will intercept the HTTP response headers sent through this reverse proxy and rewrite them to match the Apache server.

After saving the file, yous demand to edit your wp-config.php file by adding the following code just earlier the line that asks you to end editing.

          # ProxyPass Settings # overrides the variables below to ensure that any # request to /weblog/* subdirectory is taken care of properly $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = '/web log' . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'] = '/blog' . $_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']; $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] = '/blog' . $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];        

Finally, yous need to update your WordPress site's database to add together the configuration values for the /web log subdirectory link. You tin can do that by running the following SQL query:

          UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = 'https://world wide web.instance.com/blog' WHERE option_name IN( 'siteurl', 'home' );        

Y'all should now be able to visit https://world wide web.case.com/blog URL and have your WordPress site hosted at http://blog.domain.com subdomain load without changing its URL. You can go on using WordPress as usual to browse, write, edit, and manage your site.

Limitations of a Reverse Proxy

  • A reverse proxy poses a meaning security risk as it can read and modify all the traffic passing through it. If you're passing HTTPS traffic through the contrary proxy, and so it needs to decrypt and re-encrypt the passing data. This means that it must possess the individual keys of the SSL/TLS certificate. Thus, if whatever malicious party can compromise your reverse proxy, they can log passwords and inject malware into your websites.
  • If you or your users tin can't access your primary server direct, then using a reverse proxy tin atomic number 82 to a single point of failure. For example, if you lot're using a reverse proxy as a forepart to serve multiple domains, then its outage can pb to all the domains going offline simultaneously.
  • If you're relying on a third-political party reverse proxy (due east.grand. Cloudflare), then you lot're handing over your site's sensitive information to them. While they're trusted, you cannot predict what information technology may lead to.
  • Restoring backups or pushing staging sites live on websites that load over a contrary proxy can cause the proxied site to stop loading properly.

Choosing Between a CDN and a Opposite Proxy

CDNs are an advanced form of opposite proxy with most of the configuration and maintenance taken care of by a third-party. They can provide amazing performance benefits to your WordPress site with minor endeavor from your end.

Not only do CDNs cache content and serve it swiftly to users, but they also reduce load on your origin servers, lower bandwidth costs, provide an additional layer of security, heave your site'due south SEO, and help yous scale your website amend.

You'll notice that most of the benefits provided by CDNs are the same as those provided by reverse proxies. So, should you cull a CDN over a reverse proxy, or vice versa?

There'due south no reason you lot must settle with simply one. If you already have a reverse proxy installed, you'll even so see speed and operation gains from using a CDN. Both their caches layer well, and if you take any unique request treatment needs (e.g. dynamic content, ecommerce), then you tin configure it easily with some custom headers passed on by the CDN or the reverse proxy.

Desire to larn more about reverse proxy servers? This article covers... ✅ how they piece of work, ✅ major benefits, ✅ how you can use them to speed up and secure your WordPress site. Click to Tweet

Summary

WordPress is highly flexible. Yous can use information technology as a blog, an ecommerce site, or even a Learning Direction System. In most cases, you can customize WordPress to suit your unique requirements.

However, sometimes you may have to use a separate domain or a secondary server to host an boosted site. Equally discussed earlier, it may be considering of using different applied science stacks for a big enterprise site or launching a WordPress blog for a pre-existing non-WordPress site.

A opposite proxy tin can help in both these cases, helping y'all get the near out of WordPress without giving up the main website and starting over.


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