Nginx Proxy Manager vs. Traefik vs. Caddy: Picking a Reverse Proxy for Your Homelab
Every self-hosted setup eventually hits the same wall: you’ve got four, six, ten services running on different ports, and typing http://10.0.0.50:8096 from memory has stopped being funny. A reverse proxy fixes that - one entry point, real hostnames, automatic TLS certificates, and a single place to manage access instead of juggling port numbers. The question isn’t whether you need one. It’s which one. There are more options than these three, but Nginx Proxy Manager, Traefik, and Caddy cover the vast majority of homelab setups for good reason - they’re mature, well documented, and each represents a genuinely different philosophy about how a reverse proxy should work. Picking the wrong one isn’t fatal, but re-migrating a dozen services to a different proxy after the fact is a weekend you don’t get back. ...