What is the difference between a proxy server and a Load Balancer?

A proxy server is a server that acts as a gateway or intermediary between any device and the rest of the internet. Proxies accept and forward connection requests and then return data for those requests. Proxies make up our websites, online services, and other networks. People use proxies for many things, it can change your IP address, improve access speed, market research, web scraping, manage multiple social accounts, SEO optimization, and more.

A reverse proxy server is a type of proxy server that usually sits behind a firewall in a private network and directs client requests to the appropriate backend server. A common use is for load balancing.

Load balancing is defined as the orderly and efficient distribution of network or application traffic across multiple servers in a server farm. Each load balancer sits between the client device and the backend server, receives incoming requests, and then distributes them to any available server that can satisfy those requests. Load balancing can optimize response times and avoid uneven overloading of some computing nodes while others are idle.