Squid Proxy Cache Server

My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is that we have machines behind an internet firewall which do not have access to the internet. The only way these machines can access anything outside, for example, Java packages or Maven packages, is via Squid Proxy Cache Server. These machines are called air-gapped servers, and air-gapped servers do not have access to the internet. If they do not have access to the internet but still want to access the internet, then Squid Proxy Cache Server is a good way to connect to the internet and download those packages. Currently, we are using it as a security tool. Not every machine needs to connect to the internet. Only a handful of machines need to connect, or in this case, Squid Proxy Cache Server needs to connect to the internet.

Although Squid Proxy Cache Server was earlier used in a pre-internet environment where not every machine was connected to the internet, it is still surviving now because it is the only mechanism where we can emulate firewalling. Not every machine needs to connect to the internet. Our product is based out of a data center, so machines go via Squid Proxy Cache Server. Unique scenarios or challenges include having to enable something called ACLs. Most people just install Squid Proxy Cache Server and think that it is all done, but there is a specific Access Control List that you have to enable so all servers or your subnet will start accessing Squid Proxy Cache Server. If you do not enable this, then the machines will not get access to the internet.

In our case, we only use it for Maven proxy servers or Maven cache. We use the Maven cache after Squid Proxy Cache Server. So, any application that needs a Java package comes to the Maven cache server, then it goes to Squid Proxy Cache Server, and then it goes to the internet. We are limiting what we are allowing through the proxy.

The best features Squid Proxy Cache Server offers in my experience include how easy it is to install and configure. It has been available for almost every Linux distribution for the last twenty to thirty years. Although these days it is not as widely used as other networking tools, the advantage that it gives is that not every machine needs to have access to the internet. Another part that I really appreciate about it is the logs. The logs allow you to see what every machine is accessing. I think that is one of the best features of Squid Proxy Cache Server. You can actually see if a request is going to a particular domain and what is being served by Squid Proxy Cache Server. The only limitation there is that HTTPS traffic cannot be decrypted. Anything that happens inside an HTTPS tunnel is not shown to Squid Proxy Cache Server, which is appropriate security and how HTTPS was supposed to work.

One of the features that I find useful in Squid Proxy Cache Server is that you can host multiple Squid Proxy Cache Server instances behind a load balancer, and you can have a cache mechanism. You can have a parent domain hierarchy in Squid Proxy Cache Server. If the child is not able to find a certain website, it goes to the parent. Those things are also available in Squid Proxy Cache Server, though they are rarely used today. You can chain Squid Proxy Cache Server instances together to create one more cache and have busy servers and less busy servers. There is something called a cache miss and a cache hit. A good proxy server has a higher number of cache hits and a lower number of cache misses. All those things are very well documented inside the logs as well. That is another unique feature of Squid Proxy Cache Server.

Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization because, as I mentioned, I do not have to enable internet access for each and every machine. They have to go via Squid Proxy Cache Server. So that has increased my security bar for the network. This approach has led to more peace of mind and best practices. Only one server has to access the internet. On the firewall, you have to allow only Squid Proxy Cache Server. The rest are all clients to that Squid Proxy Cache Server. So that takes care of your major security headache.

I cannot think of how Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved. It has everything built-in, from Active Directory integration to centralized logging. It has been a proxy cache server for so many years. I do not think you can perfect it anymore or that there is any more work left. It is the de facto proxy server for a reason.

If I had to add more about needed improvements for Squid Proxy Cache Server, a UI built on top of Squid Proxy Cache Server where I can see the logs in real-time would be great, but it is not really a priority for anyone. You can have Squid Proxy Cache Server logs going to a syslog or a Splunk server and then you can see it in real-time. You really do not need to worry about it. Another good feature would be if the logs could be in JSON format. Then Elasticsearch, Splunk, and everyone could parse it easily.

I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server ever since two thousand three or ever since I started my career. In earlier days, it was used as a caching and an HTTP proxy. We used to have only a very few machines that were connected to the internet. Unlike these days where every laptop is connected to the internet, in earlier days, only a few machines used to connect to the internet, and that internet was via Squid Proxy Cache Server. We have been using it for almost twenty years now.

Squid Proxy Cache Server is one hundred percent stable.

Regarding Squid Proxy Cache Server's scalability, you can have a parent and a child Squid Proxy Cache Server instances, or you can put Squid Proxy Cache Server behind a load balancer. Depending on how you want to do it, it is all available for you.

The customer support for Squid Proxy Cache Server is not needed because it is an open-source product. You do not need customer care support for Squid Proxy Cache Server. If you know how to run most open-source products, this is the product. If you can run Linux and install packages on Linux, this is a good way to go. There is no support needed. There is an open-source community available on the internet, or the manual pages themselves are very helpful.

I previously used a different solution before Squid Proxy Cache Server, where all machines were connecting to the internet.

My experience with Squid Proxy Cache Server regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is an open-source product. There is no pricing, setup cost, or licensing cost. You use it and if you do not want it, you shut it down. It is as easy as that. Using Squid Proxy Cache Server is as easy as using Linux.

Before choosing Squid Proxy Cache Server, I evaluated other options such as SSHD as a SOCKS server and Apache as a proxy server. But those are very hard to configure. Squid Proxy Cache Server is the de facto proxy cache server. I do not need to explain much. If you just search for "proxy server," you are most probably going to find that Squid Proxy Cache Server is the right one.

I use the logs from Squid Proxy Cache Server only for troubleshooting. For example, why is a certain IP address not able to get a certain package or what is a certain IP address doing? The logs are mostly in an access log format and it is very easy to read and see what each and every machine is trying to access.

I rate Squid Proxy Cache Server a nine out of ten.

I rate it a nine because I do not think any software is ten out of ten. Every software has a chance to improve. No software is perfect.

Integrating AI with Squid Proxy Cache Server is a really great ask and would be a great feature.

Regarding Squid Proxy Cache Server's AI capabilities, it just works out of the box. You do not have to worry too much about it. It has sensible defaults inside it. You just have to tweak those sensible defaults if you are having high traffic.

My advice to others looking into using Squid Proxy Cache Server is to go ahead and install it. The sensible defaults will take care of most of the security items. You really do not have to worry about it.

For twenty-three years, I thought I would not be using Squid Proxy Cache Server. I thought the days of Squid Proxy Cache Server were dead, obsolete, and that it was not needed. But it does serve its purpose in today's age as well.

In my career, I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for almost five years. I was working in a news channel in media before two years ago. When I was there, we deployed Squid Proxy Cache Server for media-related pictures and file-related contents.

We use Squid Proxy Cache Server primarily to secure our network. No device, no user, and no desktop is allowed to use the internet bypassing the proxy. This is all about the forward proxy. The first thing in our mind at that time was to secure our network when our devices and users connect to the internet. We introduced Squid Proxy for that to minimize security risks. We also used it for the reverse proxy to mitigate incoming attacks when someone visits websites and other services. The traffic connects directly to our servers and passes through our reverse proxy server. Secondly, we planned to have a cache to speed up our productivity between servers and user data, so we also configured caching settings in the proxy server, which provides a great benefit to productivity by saving bandwidth.

What I appreciate the most about Squid Proxy Cache Server is that both of its features are very beneficial for any IT company, whether it should be a media company, a finance company, or any other sector. This offers the benefit and the secure option that no employee or user should go directly to the internet. It is very useful to use a proxy server and securely connect to the internet because the forward proxy always saves you. Any user connecting from internally is protected from outside attacks since we are using a forward proxy server.

For Squid Proxy Cache Server, we use it primarily to secure our network. No device, no user, and no desktop is allowed to use the internet bypassing the proxy. The first thing in our mind at that time was to secure our network when our devices and users connect to the internet. We introduced Squid Proxy for that to minimize security risks. We also used it for the reverse proxy to mitigate incoming attacks when someone visits websites and other services. The traffic connects directly to our servers and passes through our reverse proxy server. Secondly, we planned to have a cache to speed up our productivity between servers and user data, so we also configured caching settings in the proxy server, which provides a great benefit to productivity by saving bandwidth.

As for what I dislike about Squid Proxy Cache Server, there is nothing specifically to dislike. However, currently, we are using Fortinet and Sophos firewalls, which have built-in proxy servers. I have seen that they are enriched in security, with maximized security levels featuring DLP, IPS, IDS, and SSL inspection. They come with various security features, and thus, the security is a bit higher in these products.

As of right now, Squid Proxy Cache Server does not have this sort of security, so I would like to see better security in Squid Proxy Cache Server. I think Squid Proxy Cache Server is an open-source server. At that time, we had not deployed those features, but I think you can have them in Squid Proxy Cache Server too.

To make Squid Proxy Cache Server better, we can integrate some other products that introduce security. We can enrich the firewall and enhance SE Linux and file-level control. We can introduce SSL inspection and create or deploy IPS and some DLP-related features into it. If it remains open source, all those improvements will be much better.

In my career, I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for almost five years.

Regarding stability, it was very good. We did not face any kind of crash or network failure issue. Once in a blue moon, we have faced an issue related to cache, as users and device owners complained about the network not working. We checked the proxy server, and the cache server was not working properly because it had reached its maximum capacity. After clearing and purging it, it started to work well again.

In terms of scalability, Squid Proxy Cache Server is always scalable as much as you want. If you have deployed it behind a SAN storage device, you can maximize its capacity. If you notice trouble related to RAM, CPU, or storage size, you can scale it as much as you want.

There was not any sort of technical support for Squid Proxy Cache Server when we were using it. We did not have any technical support or any SLA from any company. We were managing it on our own, and it was totally open-source.

The deployment of Squid Proxy Cache Server is easy and very enjoyable.

I have used an alternative, and the deployment of Squid Proxy Cache Server is easy and very enjoyable.

I would rate Squid Proxy Cache Server a seven out of ten overall, considering its working, scalability, and durability. The scalability and reliability worked well for Squid Proxy Cache Server, so I would rate it an eight out of ten. However, I would rate it a little lower in security because it does not come with the required security features. I give Squid Proxy Cache Server an overall rating of seven out of ten.

I completed one project with my virtual lab using Squid Proxy Cache Server. I started using Squid Proxy Cache Server approximately four months ago, in April or March. I created a virtual lab with a virtual company that has users, and I used Squid Proxy Cache Server to block them from entering certain internet websites. The main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server was to control web access. I chose Squid Proxy Cache Server because it is open source and free, which are the features I appreciate most about it.

The overall main benefits I experienced from using Squid Proxy Cache Server are the ability to control employee web browsing. I can manage which websites employees are permitted to access. This prevents them from consuming excessive bandwidth on the company network.

The configuration of Squid Proxy Cache Server was somewhat difficult for someone new to the product. I received assistance from AI during setup, but a new user would find it challenging.

When dealing with websites that use SSL, you need to create a CA certificate and install it on every device in your company to experience the full benefits of the configuration process.

The setup process is complex for someone new to Squid Proxy Cache Server.

I started using Squid Proxy Cache Server approximately four months ago, in April or March.

I did not experience any stability or performance issues. Squid Proxy Cache Server worked perfectly, and the users in my virtual lab could not access restricted sites, so it performed its job as intended.

I did not attempt to scale Squid Proxy Cache Server.

I was not aware of the technical support team or the process for escalating questions because this was only a virtual lab for training purposes.

I did not use a different proxy product prior to Squid Proxy Cache Server.

Installing Squid Proxy Cache Server was very easy. I used it for free for training purposes. I implemented it as a package with pfSense during the initial setup process.

I received help and had assistance during setup.

I did not evaluate any other solutions.

My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server was during the time when I was using pfSense, so I set up a configuration that was very important for me to have Squid Proxy configured.

I used Squid Proxy Cache Server mainly for site blocking to provide complete security coverage, which helped me deal with the issue of access and analysis of different clients within the company, and I used it daily within a scenario together with pfSense.

At the time I used Squid Proxy Cache Server, it was implemented on a local network consisting of a physical machine that had several Docker containers, and inside it, pfSense handled all the ACL control together with Squid Proxy Cache Server.

The features such as the block list via ACL and log recording made my work easier by allowing employees to have better quality of performance in terms of blocking, which helped people stay more focused and integrated in what they had to do without getting distracted by sites or networks they should not access.

I have been working in my field for more than 15 years. I used Squid Proxy Cache Server for approximately 5 to 7 years, though I am not using it lately. My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server was when I used pfSense, and it was very important for me to have Squid Proxy configured. I mainly used it for website blocking to provide full security coverage, particularly focusing on the matter of accesses and analysis of different clients within the company, and I used it daily within a scenario together with pfSense.

Squid Proxy Cache Server had a positive impact on my organization by being the main factor helping with productivity. By doing this control and handling the quality of accesses, the quality and performance of the staff got much better.

I think the best features that Squid Proxy Cache Server offers are the block list via ACL, which helps a lot, the basic installation with pfSense that I used frequently, and the interesting log records, which are very helpful for us. The features such as the block list via ACL and log recording made our work easier by helping to ensure that employees had better quality of performance in terms of blocking, so people stay more focused and more engaged in what they have to do and do not get distracted with sites or networks they should not be accessing.

In my opinion, Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved by covering more issues, having more updates, and providing a slightly more updated version of lists and logs and information that we can distribute to other places for a more complete monitoring of it.

I have been working in my field for more than 15 years.

Squid Proxy Cache Server is stable in my experience.

In my opinion, the scalability of Squid Proxy Cache Server is very good.

I did not previously use a different solution before Squid Proxy Cache Server.

When I chose Squid Proxy Cache Server, I did not evaluate other options because it came up first during my research, and I already had the integration, which made it much easier to use.

At the time when I used Squid Proxy Cache Server, it was implemented on a local network, on a machine that had several Docker containers, and inside it, there was pfSense which handled all the ACL control along with Squid Proxy Cache Server.

I did not observe any practical result in terms of monetary values after implementing Squid Proxy Cache Server because I always used it as open source, together with pfSense, which is also open source. Everything was configured manually, and I did not have much improvement in terms of cost because there were none.

I think the best features that Squid Proxy Cache Server offers are the block list via ACL, which helps a lot, the basic installation with pfSense that I used frequently, and the interesting log records, which are very helpful for us. My advice to other people thinking about using Squid Proxy Cache Server is that you can use it because it is worth it. I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is as a filter. I use it as an add-on to pfSense firewall software, where I can create rules to permit users to browse certain content or restrict access. Squid Proxy Cache Server is used not only to cache data but also to restrict permission to content.

Squid Proxy Cache Server positively impacts my organization because I can filter the internet content that users can access. This content filtering has improved security, increased productivity, secured the connectivity, and helped me meet compliance requirements.

The best features that Squid Proxy Cache Server offers may also be useful to other users. I find the access control feature stands out the most for me.

Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved with maintenance packages, updates, and everything related to security. There could be more information, documentation, and support in Spanish regarding the needed improvements.

I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for approximately twenty years.

I rate this product an eight out of ten. I would have rated it a nine because I did not understand it before; it was a seven at that time. I mean that you need to tell me more about what I did not understand before my seven rating. I encourage you to move forward, but you need to improve your understanding of my pronunciation, as your support should extend beyond American citizens.

My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is to accelerate users' internet browsing experience. With Squid Proxy Cache Server in place, all users pass through it, and browsers are configured to pass through Squid Proxy Cache Server, which means cached requests on Squid Proxy Cache Server deliver faster browsing experiences.

Squid Proxy Cache Server offers flexibility, ease of deployment, and scalability as its best features. Its flexibility and scalability have helped my team by making it easy to set up redundant Squid Proxy Cache Server instances and allowing for quick restoration on the fly. Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization by creating a better user experience. I have noticed the improvement in user experience through user feedback, improved network speed, and better usage of the available bandwidth, which saves company resources.

I cannot think of anything to improve about Squid Proxy Cache Server.

I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for 15 years.

Squid Proxy Cache Server is very stable.

I previously used a different solution before Squid Proxy Cache Server, which was Microsoft ISA, and I switched because of the robust features and scalability of Squid Proxy Cache Server.

I evaluated other options before choosing Squid Proxy Cache Server, such as ISA.

I would rate Squid Proxy Cache Server a nine out of ten. I rate it a nine because it is really good, and I have not seen too many other products that compare. Regarding Squid Proxy Cache Server's AI capabilities, I think it is a well-thought-out framework and certainly very useful in its application. In terms of Squid Proxy Cache Server's AI capabilities, I find it very accurate with really good outputs. My overall review rating for Squid Proxy Cache Server is nine.

I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for nine years in my current company. Before that, I used it overseas from early 2008 to 2010, so I have approximately ten years of experience overall.

In our infrastructure, the main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is serving server-side internet connectivity rather than user connectivity. When a server needs to access the internet, it uses Squid Proxy to do so, and we implement ACLs on the Squid server as well.

For example, we recently built a Microsoft server that needs to access the internet to patch, update, and perform other functions, and this is where Squid Proxy Cache Server really helps my team. We gather the information of the server source IP and the destination they want to access, such as abc.microsoft.com or xyz.microsoft.com. Then we create ACLs in the Squid configuration file with source and destination lists, attach them with the policy, and that is how we use it.

We have hundreds of servers in our environment, and I add to their requirements daily. Each server's requirement with Squid Proxy Cache Server is different, as they want to access different sites. We strictly control them, and it works both ways. It is both cache and internet control, mostly internet control.

In our environment, we use Squid Proxy Cache Server to control server-side access to the internet. On top of that, caching is also a benefit because the same cache is used by other servers. We download images from Microsoft, and if they are in the cache, the next download will be faster.

I have experience with Cyberoam as well, which also uses Squid as a caching server. Proxy servers have two components: one is caching, and another is internet access or URL database. The content or destination that has already been used can be saved in the cache. This is the best feature: cache in and cache out.

I used Squid Proxy Cache Server in my previous organization with delay pools to control bandwidth. We reviewed our MRTG or Cacti graphs before and after implementation, and after that implementation, we saw around twenty to twenty-five percent of internet traffic saved.

It is very difficult for us to determine if the twenty to twenty-five percent savings is from caching or from internet control. However, what we found is that before implementing Squid, we had around one hundred Mbps bandwidth utilization on average. I cannot remember the exact figures, but after that implementation, we found around seventy to eighty percent of internet utilization according to the graphs, while the user base and everything else remained the same. There was no degradation or employee shortage. Everything was as usual. Therefore, we feel that we saved around twenty percent bandwidth.

I did not use the AI capabilities of Squid Proxy Cache Server, but everything is moving toward AI. There should be some AI capabilities so that we can use delay pools or bandwidth quotas, and based on that, there should be auto-scaling. If the quota is filled, then additional chunks should be added to the quota automatically.

I would rate it ten if we had a dashboard or visible interface with Squid Proxy Cache Server. Because we are using third-party tools such as Cacti and MRTG to see utilization, and other third-party monitoring tools, there should be built-in tools in Squid so that we can measure performance and see results. If that were available, I would give it a ten.

I have not encountered any stability issues with Squid Proxy Cache Server so far. It is stable.

In our environment, we implemented scaling differently with Squid Proxy Cache Server. We did not implement anything inside Squid for scaling. Instead, we placed a load balancer in front of Squid Proxy, and when anything requires scaling, we simply add a new Squid Proxy behind the F5 load balancer. That is how we handle scaling. However, I believe there should be automatic scaling with AI. I have not tried that.

We never used the Webmin GUI for Squid Proxy Cache Server, but for a Linux expert, it is easy to control from the command line. I never have experience using the GUI. I have rarely used Webmin, but I did not discover how Webmin is useful. There should be a GUI interface or UI so that administrators can control it more easily.

I always thought Squid Proxy Cache Server is open source, so I never considered that there should be support. However, it would be great to have support similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Before it was open source, but later it became enterprise. Currently, I do not know if there is a professional support team available for Squid Proxy Cache Server, but it would be helpful.

So far, we have not needed to reach out for help regarding support for Squid Proxy Cache Server.

Before, we used Blue Coat Proxy, Cyberoam Proxy, Forcepoint, and other solutions. The reason we switched to Squid Proxy Cache Server is cost. Those professional proxy solutions have huge yearly cost involvement, and currently with Squid Proxy Cache Server, we are using it at no cost.

We evaluated a few solutions: Blue Coat, Cyberoam, and Squid, mostly these three. We found that Squid is the lowest-cost option. We also tried Forcepoint. We put Forcepoint, Blue Coat, Cyberoam, and Squid into a matrix and table, and based on all those factors, we found that Squid is good in terms of cost. We also conducted research and found that everybody uses Squid as their backend caching solution.

Squid Proxy Cache Server is deployed on-premises in our organization. We have approximately six Squid Proxy Linux machines, and we have an F5 load balancer that controls those six Squid Proxies. High availability can also be implemented, but we have not tried that.

I do not have specific data regarding return on investment with Squid Proxy Cache Server. However, in general, I feel it is useful. Mostly, I do not see any cost involved except for the hardware cost.

For our environment, we are using the free open source Squid Proxy Cache Server, so there is no licensing cost. Our only cost is for hardware, such as the Linux machine. In terms of costing, we do not feel much impact. It is very minimal.

I advise others looking into using Squid Proxy Cache Server that if they are proficient in Linux and have a good Linux administrator, they should go for it.

Everything is good regarding Squid Proxy Cache Server. I would just advise that there should be a professional web interface for Squid so that we can see the consumption of the proxy. My review rating for this product is eight out of ten.

My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is that it provides the proxy and also reverse proxy in some cases.

For a quick specific example of how I use Squid Proxy Cache Server as a proxy or reverse proxy in my operations, the forward proxy is basically just NATing so that I can access websites from a particular domain. While for the reverse proxy, it acts as the connectivity for the backend servers which are not exposed to the internet. That is how it is built.

As a reverse proxy, the reverse proxy is basically exposing the IMAP server so that all the mail servers' ports are exposed via the reverse proxy, which are distributed across multiple availability zones.

The best features that Squid Proxy Cache Server offers include a lot of caching functionality, which is the best part, and then it is the security. I can also provide clustering between the proxies as caching servers, so multiple Squid Proxy Cache Server instances can act as a load balancer and content cache.

Regarding caching functionality or clustering, in some cases, I am an Internet Service Provider. For a group of customers, it makes sense to have this cached on the server so that all the files which are more or less static stay in the cache. This speeds up or boosts the connectivity and the downloading functionality for any website visiting, so majorly, it's a performance booster.

Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization because first of all, it's an open-source thing, so I don't really have to do anything special to buy the license. It comes default with Red Hat, and that is how we install on the servers. In my previous company, we were installing it on Fedora and Ubuntu. It's completely free and open source. The functionality, such as allowing a group of people to access particular websites and blocking websites, are all interesting for us. Sometimes, the government asks us to block some website pages and some zones, so along with the DNS blocking, we also block the HTTP content.

I think Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved by having a nice front-end, one similar to Blue Coat for access management, view management, and direct configuration instead of doing it all through the CLI. It's best to have everything done through the GUI, which is what I think can improve the product.

I don't want to implement third-party GUIs on Squid Proxy Cache Server. So that's what would be on my wish list—that Squid Proxy Cache Server by itself provides a GUI, which will give more confidence to users.

I haven't actually used AI with Squid Proxy Cache Server, but I think it might be very interesting to have the AI capability built-in. However, I do think we need some GPU or something to boost the performance on Squid Proxy Cache Server as natively running. I think we need to add some GPU cards so that it works more natively with AI.

I don't have experience using AI features yet, but I think it would be great if it could do some live scanning of the websites that are getting blocked on a daily basis and perform some sampling analysis. Especially in the case of reverse proxy, if there are any attacks happening, it would be beneficial if it scrapes through its own log files and provides some nice dashboards showing where the attacks are coming from. That would be really great to have as a handy troubleshooting tool.

One more feature I would ask for is if AI can provide the best possible configuration and do a review of Squid Proxy Cache Server just to make sure that no other ports or anything by default are missed in configuration. It would also be great if the proxy server acts as a load balancer in a cluster mode that shares the cache, and the configuration is best set.

I have been using Squid Proxy Cache Server for more than four or five years.

Squid Proxy Cache Server is very stable.

The scalability of Squid Proxy Cache Server is that it can be horizontally scaled; you don't always need vertical scaling. Instead of one instance, you can put it behind the load balancer so that it can serve a huge amount of customers.

Customer support for Squid Proxy Cache Server comes from Red Hat, so that's good support for me with the premium support.

I previously used a different solution, specifically the Blue Coat proxy, which was end of life. With a lot of cost optimization, I switched to Squid Proxy Cache Server as a solution.

Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization because first of all, it's an open-source thing, so I don't really have to do anything special to buy the license. It comes default with Red Hat, and that is how we install on the servers. In my previous company, we were installing it on Fedora and Ubuntu. It's completely free and open source.

My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer; for example, we are not a partner or reseller.

I have seen a return on investment with Squid Proxy Cache Server because money is definitely saved. Also, the enterprise maintenance and having the hardware from the vendors, which is like a lock-in, makes it difficult to replace the hardware proxies nowadays, so it's interesting. If it's container-based, it can add further advantages.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we use it with the Red Hat solution, so it was only the subscription model which I had to take for Red Hat for the enterprise support. That is how it is today. However, since it's open source, it's not backed by an enterprise. Nonetheless, Red Hat support is sufficient as premium support.

I have seen a cost saving since implementing Squid Proxy Cache Server because then I don't have to really go for something such as a Blue Coat proxy. Earlier, I was using a Blue Coat proxy, but later on, I turned to Squid Proxy Cache Server and the cost was reduced. It's very handy for operations, and also the caching has improved, so this is my use case.

Before choosing Squid Proxy Cache Server, I evaluated other options, including NGINX and the Apache solution.

I would advise others looking into using Squid Proxy Cache Server to focus on configuration optimization because there is huge potential when you do the optimization. The better you have configured Squid Proxy Cache Server, the very good potential it has for caching, security, and blocking break-ins. It's very nice. I give this product a rating of 8.