I have been self-hosting for a while now with Traefik. It works, but I’d like to give Nginx Proxy Manager a try, it seems easier to manage stuff not in docker.
Edit: btw I’m going to try this out on my RPI, not my hetzner vps, so no risk of breaking anything
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Caddy all the way!
Seconding Caddy. I’ve been using it for a couple of years now in an LXC and it’s been very easy to setup, edit and run.
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.
Actually I found traefik rather easy, I just had to make the proper docker labels and config.
PITA
Unrelated, I’m going to sound like a grammar nazi here, but holy shit there are so many acronmys, how am I supposed to know every one of them without googling? Please just say “traefik is a pain in the ass”. Also please don’t take this as a snarky reply.
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.
Nginx from day one. Well documented, it works. If something doesn’t work chances are you are a quick googlefu away from the solution.
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.
Caddy is really simple and easy. Just werks and gives you https
I mean, the basic config file for Caddy is 1 line, and gives you Let’s Encrypt by default. The entire config file for a reverse proxy can be as few as 3 lines:
my.servername.net { reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:1234 }It’s a single executable, and a single 3-line file. Caddy is an incredible piece of software.
When I was researching reverse proxies I first stumbled upon nginx and traefik and especially nginx seemed a bit intimidating. As someone who hadn’t done it before I was worried if I’d do it right. Then I found caddy and yeah just used a threeliner like that in config and that was that. Simple and easy to get it right.
I’ve since switched to having my stuff behind wireguard instead of reverse proxy, but I keep caddy around so I can just spin it back up if I want to access Jellyfin on someone’s tv or something.
Ive got a basic workflow for nginx proxy manager now so this isnt super useful but good god that’s exactly what i wish nginx was.
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.
At that point you might be better off just using Nginx without the gui. SWAG is a nice reverse proxy focused implementation of it.
I spent far too much on my domain (£3.86 for the year) to change course now!
You having a domain or not has no bearing on which of these you use lol
