Client-Side Load Balancing vs Reverse Proxy

Developers should learn and use client-side load balancing when building distributed systems, especially microservices, to enhance fault tolerance and reduce latency by avoiding an extra hop to a central load balancer meets developers should use a reverse proxy when deploying web applications to distribute traffic across multiple servers, offload ssl encryption, cache static content, and protect against attacks like ddos. Here's our take.

Client-Side Load Balancing

Nice Pick

Developers should learn and use client-side load balancing when building distributed systems, especially microservices, to enhance fault tolerance and reduce latency by avoiding an extra hop to a central load balancer

Pros

• It is particularly useful in cloud-native environments with dynamic service discovery (e
• Related to: microservices, service-discovery

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Reverse Proxy

Developers should use a reverse proxy when deploying web applications to distribute traffic across multiple servers, offload SSL encryption, cache static content, and protect against attacks like DDoS

Pros

• It's essential for high-availability setups, microservices architectures, and scenarios requiring centralized logging or authentication, such as in cloud deployments or containerized environments
• Related to: nginx, apache-http-server

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Client-Side Load Balancing is a concept while Reverse Proxy is a tool. We picked Client-Side Load Balancing based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Client-Side Load Balancing wins

Based on overall popularity. Client-Side Load Balancing is more widely used, but Reverse Proxy excels in its own space.