I use both, Traefik on my docker host that’s also used for trying out new stacks, and NPM at work for a config that won’t change (ever, probably).

Yes, the NPM web ui is somewhat easier in regard to proxying targets outside Docker.

I’ve been using caddyserver for awhile and love it. Config is nicely readable and the defaults are very good.

In my experience, all the 3 big ones work just fine. Caddy, Traefik, Nginx. I use Nginx.

I use NPM in a docker container. It could not be easier in my opinion but then again, I did not use any of the alternatives so I might be missing out on something, who knows. I did manage a couple of proxy servers in the past based on Apache and I can tell you that NPM is much easier and logical to me than that.

Just create a compose file and start it. Create DNS records pointing to your NPM IP address/exposed IP and make a host in NPM sending traffic to the right container IP:port. The compose file is super simple, could not be easier. Here’s mine for example:

services: nginx-proxy-manager: container_name: nginx-proxy-manager image: 'jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest' restart: always ports: - '80:80' - '443:443' volumes: - ./data:/data - ./letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt

I just make sure ports 443 and 80 are exposed on my router so DNS records can point to that IP adrdess. All traffic on port 80 gets re-routed to 443.

I’m probably stating all the obvious things here 😀

Nginx for my intranet because configuration is fully manual and I have complete control over it.

Caddy for the public services on my vps because it handles cert renewal automatically and most of its configuration is magic which just works.

It is unbelievable how shorter caddy configuration is, but on my intranet:

I don’t want my reverse proxy to dial on internet to try to fetch new SSL certs. I know it can be disabled, but this is the default.

I like to learn how stuff works, Nginx forces you to know more details but it is full of good documentation so it is not too painful compared to Caddy.

it seems easier to manage stuff not in docker

Read into Traefik’s dynamic configuration. Adding something outside of Docker is as easy as adding a new config file in the dynamic configuration folder. E.g. jellyfin.yml:

http: routers: jellyfin: rule: Host(`jellyfin.example.org`) entrypoints: websecure tls: certResolver: le service: jellyfin services: jellyfin: loadbalancer: servers: - url: "http://192.168.1.5:8096/"

The moment you save that file it will be active and working in Traefik.

freenginx

I use the caddy plugin in opnsense. Used nginx proxy manager from Proxmox helper scripts before that, which was relatively easy and helped me understand the whole proxy thing. Moved to caddy on opnsense a few months ago, just because, and have had no good reason to change yet.

Caddy is really simple and easy. Just werks and gives you https

but I’d like to give Nginx Proxy Manager a try, it seems easier to manage stuff not in docker.

NPM is pretty agnostic. If it receives a request for a specific address and port combination it just forwards the traffic to another specific address and port combination. This can be a docker container, but also can be a physical machine or any random URL.

It also has Let’s Encrypt included (but that should be a no-brainer).

I use and love nginx.

Maybe a bit more old fashioned than more modern solutions, but steady solid and versatile. I use it as reverse proxy ad well as proxy for php stuff and more.

I’ve been using NPM for a few years now and can’t recommend it enough. I use it to route to both docker containers on an internal proxy network as well at other services within my networks

I use traefik. I like it. Took a bit to understand, but it has some cool options like ssl passthrough and middlewares for basic auth.

I’ve been using nginx forever. It works, I can do almost everything I want, even if more complex things sometimes require some contortions. I’m not sure I would pick it again if starting from scratch, but I have no problems that are worth switching for.

I use Traefik at home. The initial setup was more complex than others but now it’s set up it’s by far the easiest to add new routes than any other I’ve tried, just by virtue of being right there in the compose/k8s files I’m already writing. Static routes are manual annoyingly, but so are every other proxy so that’s no different. The config files are the same markup language as your Compose/k8s files so you’re not learning a whole new syntax and having to switch languages mentally as you switch between them.

Caddy is super easy, but the fact that the Docker labels thing was a plugin is a con to me, I’d prefer it being first party. It also isn’t as performant as Traefik, higher CPU usage while also having higher latency.

As far as I’m aware, Nginx and Nginx Proxy Manager support no such thing, you have to manually write those routes every time you create a new service.

Nginx Proxy Manager is a lot like Portainer. It’s useful for people who don’t want to learn Nginx and just want to click a few buttons. But anything complex you’re suddenly going to be thrown into the deep end.

You’ve already set up Traefik, you’ve already done the complex bit. IMO there’s no reason to change, from this point everything else is more complicated.

Caddy is the only reverse proxy I have ever managed to successfully make use of. I failed miserably with Nginix and Traefik.

Caddy has worked very well for me for several years now. It gets the SSL certificate from my domain name provider and all.

I’ve been mostly using Nginx Proxy Manager, but I recently set up Bunkerweb as a WAF for a couple of public services I’m hosting and I kind of like it. It does reverse proxy along with a bunch of other things (bad behavior blocking, geographic blocking, SSL cert handling, it does a lot).

Mentioning it because I didn’t see any other mention of it yet.

NPM is easy to use. Caddy sounds like something I’d like to try too now.

I use nginx for static websites and TLS passthrough servers.

I use traefik as a reverse proxy for sites with many services and SSO.

Nginx is definitely easier to configure for simple things. But I prefer traefik for more complex setups.

I’ll throw in another recommendation for Caddy. I’ve been using it for years and the few problems/feature suggestions I had got implemented by the developers pretty quickly. They’re super active on their forums and I haven’t yet run into an issue where I couldn’t either figure it out myself or with help from their community forums (usually from a dev.) They’re very friendly and won’t berate you for simple mistakes like other devs.

Stick with Traefik if you’ve figured it out. It’s much more powerful than NPM in my opinion. If you insist on using NPM, you might want to try NPMPlus, it has more bells and whistles and is more actively maintained.

npm/npmplus

i use nginx proxy manager but im barely getting by. Theres zero useful documentation for setting up custom paths so everyone uses subdomains. I ended up buying my own domain just so i didnt feel guilty spamming freedns lmao.

Caddy. I started with npm but I realized it was hiding enough stuff that I wasn’t learning anything about managing networking. Caddy is super easy and has lot of sane defaults.

This the main reason I switched from traefik, I can have certificates on all my internal stuff and not just on my docker host. I personally love NPM but maybe I’ll give NPMPlus a try, I have never heard of it.

Nginx from day one. Well documented, it works. If something doesn’t work chances are you are a quick googlefu away from the solution.

For a while now I’ve been using either haproxy or nginx depending on my needs. I’ve hit instances with both where the functionality I want is in the paid version.

I use Synology integrated reverse proxy, stupidly simple and always works for me (only if IPv6 doesn’t fuck up itself, I can’t fallback to IPv4 because that is CGNATED), if I am missing features that other options have I would like to know :)

I like NPM, it’s simple, but also allows for more complex configs as well if needed. I run it in its own LXC because I have other non-dockerized things that are exposed.

having tried many in past, i always go back to haproxy. it has everything required as proxy and load balancer while also being very efficient.

Traefik is a PITA.

Caddy all the way. If you build it with Docker support (or grab the prebuilt), you can use docker container names to reverse proxy using names instead of any IP addresses or ports. It’s nice because if the IP updates, so does caddy. All automatically.

Here’s what my caddyfile looks like;

{ acme_dns cloudflare {key} } domain.dev { encode zstd gzip root * /var/www/html/domain.dev/ php_fastcgi unix//run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock tls { dns cloudflare {key} } } *.domain.dev { encode zstd gzip tls { dns cloudflare {key} } @docker host docker.domain.dev handle @docker { encode zstd gzip reverse_proxy {portainer} } @test host test.domain.dev handle @test { encode zstd gzip reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:10000 } @images host i.domain.dev handle @images { encode zstd gzip reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:9002 } @proxy host proxy.domain.dev handle @proxy { encode zstd gzip reverse_proxy proxy } @portal host portal.domain.dev handle @portal { encode zstd gzip reverse_proxy portal } @ping host ping.domain.dev handle @ping { encode zstd gzip respond "pong!" } }

DNS hosted by cloudflare but because caddy handles ACME certs, all the subdomains automatically get SSL.

Caddy all the way!