Reverse Proxy
3 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars. Scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
 Nginx Proxy Manager Simple Nginx reverse proxy UI | 32.7k | +74/wk | 83 |
| 9.5k | +2/wk | 77 | |
| 5.1k | +32/wk | 65 |
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Our Analysis
Nginx Proxy Manager puts a web UI in front of Nginx so you stop configuring reverse proxies by hand. Point-and-click reverse proxy setup, automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt, and access controls, all without touching a config file. This is the gateway drug of self-hosting. You run it in Docker, open the web UI, add your domains, point them at your Docker containers, and it handles SSL certificates automatically. For people who self-host a dozen services (Nextcloud, Gitea, Home Assistant), this makes routing and HTTPS dead simple. MIT. Fully free, no paid tier. The catch: you're adding a layer of abstraction over Nginx. When something breaks, you need to debug both the UI configuration AND the underlying Nginx config it generates. Advanced Nginx features (custom headers, complex rewrites, WebSocket tuning) sometimes require dropping into the "Advanced" config field and writing raw Nginx directives anyway. If you're comfortable with Nginx configs, Caddy might be a better choice. It auto-provisions SSL with zero config and is simpler without the UI overhead.
YARP (Yet Another Reverse Proxy) is Microsoft's toolkit for building custom proxy servers in C#. Instead of configuring Nginx or Envoy, you write your proxy logic in .NET: routing rules, load balancing, request transforms, health checks, all in C# code or configuration. The key difference from traditional proxies: YARP is a library, not a standalone server. You embed it in your ASP.NET application, which means your proxy logic lives alongside your business logic. Custom routing based on database lookups, dynamic configuration changes, request manipulation, all in the language your team already knows. MIT, backed by Microsoft, used internally. Fully free. The catch: this only makes sense if your team is already .NET. If you're not in the Microsoft ecosystem, Nginx, Caddy, Traefik, or Envoy are all better choices. YARP's sweet spot is teams that need custom proxy behavior and want to write it in C# rather than learning Envoy's filter chain or Nginx's Lua scripting.