A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary between clients and backend web services, while a reverse proxy primarily focuses on load balancing, caching, TLS termination, and shielding backend servers from direct exposure to the internet. Reverse proxies are used for web applications, websites, and internal services where the goal is to distribute client requests among multiple backend servers. In contrast, API gateways manage API requests and serve as an entry point for clients, offering various API management functionalities such as routing, security, load balancing, authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and other API-specific tasks. API gateways are ideal for exposing and managing APIs to external clients, including third-party developers, mobile apps, and web applications. The choice between a reverse proxy and an API gateway depends on specific use cases and requirements, with API gateways being chosen for API exposure and management, while reverse proxies are used for load balancing and caching in web applications and websites.