VPN vs Proxy

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a service that sits between a user and the internet. The user’s traffic is encrypted and routed to a VPN server before proceeding to its destination. This masks the users’s IP address with that of the VPN server. VPNs are secure as all traffic is encrypted.

What is a Proxy?

A proxy sits between a user and the internet as well but does not encrypt the traffic. Traffic between the user and the proxy server, and the proxy server and the internet are visible. Proxies are often used for specific purposes, such as bypassing geo-restrictions or filtering traffic, but they don’t provide the comprehensive privacy and security of a VPN.

Where are they applied?

VPNs are used when security and anonmity are a priority e.g

1. Hiding a user’s IP address.

2. Protecting personal data on public Wi-Fi.

3. Accessing region-locked content on streaming platforms.

4. Enabling employees to securely access company networks or resources when working remotely.

Proxies are applied when speed and simplicity are the priority e.g

1. Scraping data from websites without being blocked by rotating IP addresses.

2. Reverse proxies are used to distribute incoming traffic across multiple servers to improve performance and reliability.

Reverse proxy

A reverse proxy is a server that sits between a client and a server(or a group of servers) hosting an application. It acts on behalf of the backend server by receiving and managing client requests and forwarding them to the appropriate server or API. It boosts performance through caching and load balancing, security since the backend server(s) are not accessed directly and availability/fail over since the reverse proxy can forward requests to a backup server if the primary server fails.

Enabling employees to securely access company resources when working remotely.

Employees connect to the company VPN server using client specific credentials. Once connected, they can access resources in the same network as the VPN server such as databases. They can also connect to the internet in the case of a full tunnel VPN.