It is a simple layer 7 proxy and nothing more. It is the simplest so it works. As a comparison, almost all other reverse proxies can handle layer 4 traffic.

and I don't miss the label feature of traefik at all. centralized config for an entrance gateway is so much easier to maintain and find security flaws. I think labeling would be useful only in production clusters with thousands of microservices that you absolutely need the reverse of control to get away from dependency hell. Otherwise, I advice against using such feature, not even with a caddy plugin. (I mean if you really need it, why not just use traefik...)