Using a Load Balancer as a Free Reverse Proxy
A reverse proxy sits between client devices and backend servers, strengthening security by intercepting and managing traffic. Additionally, a reverse proxy can improve performance and simplify infrastructure management. The Progress® Kemp® Free Load Balancer solution functions as a full-featured reverse proxy, combining traffic management with advanced security capabilities in a single deployment. Organizations can use it in non-commercial settings to protect backend servers, optimize application delivery and centralize security policies without load balancer licensing costs.
DownloadWhat is a Reverse Proxy?
A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary that receives client requests and forwards them to the appropriate backend server. Unlike a forward proxy that sits in front of clients and manages their outbound requests, a reverse proxy sits in front of servers and manages inbound traffic on their behalf.
When a user connects to a web application, a reverse proxy receives the request first. It then determines which backend server should handle that request based on factors such as server health, current load and content type. Additionally, backend servers process requests and send responses back via the reverse proxy, which delivers them to the client. At no point does the client communicate directly with the backend server.
This architecture provides a natural control point for managing traffic, applying security policies and optimizing performance across the entire application delivery chain.
Reverse Proxy vs. Load Balancer
A load balancer distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers to deliver high availability and help prevent overloads. A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary for these servers, often combining load balancing and specialized features such as TLS/SSL offloading, content caching and security filtering.
Free Load Balancer combines both roles. It distributes traffic intelligently across server pools while simultaneously acting as a reverse proxy that adds security, performance optimization and traffic management to every connection it handles.
Why Having a Reverse Proxy Matters
Deploying a reverse proxy in front of backend infrastructure delivers tangible benefits that directly impact application performance, security posture and operational efficiency.
Traffic Management and Scalability
A reverse proxy enables organizations to scale web services by adding or removing backend servers without changing public DNS entries or edge firewall configurations. The Free Load Balancer solution provides reverse proxy functionality and also load balancing by distributing incoming requests across multiple servers using intelligent load balancing algorithms.
This helps prevent any single server from becoming a bottleneck. Health monitoring detects failed or degraded servers and automatically redirects traffic to healthy servers, maintaining service availability during server outages and planned maintenance windows.
Security and Attack Mitigation
A reverse proxy is the logical point in the network to apply security layers to a backend server infrastructure. The Free Load Balancer solution includes an integrated Web Application Firewall (WAF) that inspects decrypted HTTPS traffic and applies custom rules or ModSecurity-compatible rule sets to help detect and block common web attacks before they reach backend servers.
The built-in Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) examine network traffic for suspicious patterns, generating alerts and blocking malicious packets.
By hiding backend server IP addresses and topologies from external clients, reverse proxies also reduce the attack surface that threat actors can discover and target.
TLS/SSL Encryption Offload
Securing traffic with TLS creates significant processor overhead on backend servers. The Free Load Balancer solution (running on the same codebase as the commercial LoadMaster solution) handles encryption and decryption at the reverse proxy load balancer layer, removing these processor-intensive cryptographic operations from application servers.
This frees backend resources to focus on application logic, while the reverse proxy handles all certificate management and encrypted connections. Organizations can also enforce consistent encryption standards across all services from a single management point.
Content Caching
The Free Load Balancer solution can cache frequently requested static content and serve subsequent requests directly from its cache, without forwarding them to a backend server. Caching reduces load on backend servers and improves response times for end users. Static assets that change infrequently, such as images, stylesheets and scripts, benefit most from caching.
Compression
The Free Load Balancer solution reverse proxy can compress data before transmitting it to clients, reducing bandwidth requirements and accelerating response times. The Free Load Balancer supports both lossless and lossy compression methods, allowing administrators to balance compression against processing overhead based on content type and network conditions.
Why Choose Free Load Balancer as Your Reverse Proxy?
Free Load Balancer provides enterprise-grade reverse proxy capabilities without licensing costs, making it an ideal choice for development teams, testing environments and non-commercial deployments. Built on the same codebase as Progress’s commercial LoadMaster products, it delivers proven reverse proxy functionality that's trusted by organizations worldwide.
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Enterprise Features at No Cost
Unlike some stripped-down free alternatives, Free Load Balancer includes a WAF engine, IPS/IDS capabilities, enhanced authentication with single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication, content caching, compression and full API access. These features enable realistic testing scenarios that mirror production environments running the commercial LoadMaster product. Or enterprise-grade deployments for non-commercial projects.
Simplified Configuration
Free Load Balancer provides an intuitive web interface that simplifies reverse proxy configuration and management. Pre-built application templates for enterprise software such as Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and SAP accelerate deployment. Configuration guides walk administrators through setup processes, reducing errors and shortening deployment time.
Flexible Deployment
Free Load Balancer supports multiple hypervisors for deployment, including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Nutanix and Oracle VirtualBox. Cloud deployments work natively on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services and on other cloud platforms via virtual machine deployments. IT teams can deploy the reverse proxy wherever their infrastructure runs.
Seamless Upgrade Path
Organizations can upgrade to commercial the LoadMaster solution licenses without reinstalling or reconfiguring their deployment. This preserves all reverse proxy configurations, operational knowledge and skill investments. Teams can develop expertise on the Free Load Balancer solution and transition to commercial licensing as technical or business requirements change.
Notes on Free Load Balancer Restrictions
IT Teams frequently use the Free Load Balancer solution primarily for testing and development environments that mirror commercial deployments. You can also use it for non-revenue-generating deployments in production. However, it is limited to 20 Mbps of Layer-7 traffic throughput and to 50 SSL TPS. It lacks Active/Hot-standby redundancy and Multi-Node Clustering.
The WAF is the full commercial engine, but it doesn't include the comprehensive rule set that a commercial LoadMaster support subscription provides. You can create or import any ModSecurity-compatible rules you need without restrictions.
Read more and compare it to a commercial LoadMaster licensed deployment.
Common Use Cases for a Free Load Balancer Reverse Proxy
A reverse proxy, such as Free Load Balancer solution, is commonly used across multiple deployment scenarios where organizations need network traffic management. While commercial LoadMaster licenses are better suited to mission-critical production deployments, the Free Load Balancer excels at designing, piloting and testing reverse proxy configurations before production rollout. Andyou can use it for non-commercial projects that fit within the technical and licensing limitations previously outlined.
- Web Application Delivery
- Microsoft Application Proxying
- API Gateway and Microservices
Web Application Delivery
Development and QA teams frequently use the Free Load Balancer solution to validate reverse proxy configurations before deploying to production. They test TLS/SSL termination, caching strategies, compression settings and WAF rule sets under controlled load conditions. This testing identifies configuration issues and performance bottlenecks before they affect production users.
Microsoft Application Proxying
The Free Load Balancer solution can harness pre-built LoadMaster templates for on-premises Microsoft deployments. Acting as a reverse proxy for common Microsoft business application deployments strengthens their security posture by offloading encryption processing and hiding internal server topologies from external exposure. IT teams can use the Free Load Balancer reverse proxy and other functionality to validate their Microsoft application delivery architecture in test environments before production deployments.
API Gateway and Microservices
Organizations building microservice architectures often use Free Load Balancer as a reverse proxy to manage API traffic. This allows teams to validate routing logic, test authentication integration and verify that load balancing preserves application functionality across distributed service endpoints.
Get Started with Free Load Balancer Today
Download Free Load Balancer now to start building a secure, high-performance reverse proxy infrastructure for your development, testing and non-commercial deployments.