lemann , 7 months ago

A reverse proxy takes all your web-based services, e.g.

• plex on port 32400
• octoprint on port 8000
• transmission on port 8888

and allows you to map these to domain names, so instead of typing server.example.com:32400 you can type plex.example.com. I have simplified this quite a bit though - you need DNS configured as well, and depending on your requirements you may want to purchase a domain name if you intend on accessing content from outside your home without a self hosted VPN.

Cloudflare is a DDoS mitigation service, a caching web proxy, and a DNS nameserver. Most users here would probably be using it for Dynamic DNS. You can use it in combination with a reverse proxy as a means to mask your home IP address from people connecting to your self hosted web-based services remotely, but on its own it cannot be used as a reverse proxy (at least easily - would not recommend attempting to). Do note that Cloudflare can see all the data you transmit through their systems, something to bare in mind if you are privacy conscious.

In my opinion though, it would be much better for you to use a self hosted VPN to access your self hosted services (can be used in combination with the reverse proxy), unless there is a specific need to expose the services out to the internet

Edit: fix minor typo, add extra info about cloudflare