Varnish is designed for content-heavy dynamic websites. While many other HTTP/web accelerators began life as client-side proxies or origin servers, Varnish was designed from the ground up as a reverse web accelerator for inbound traffic.

To give you an idea of "the power of Varnish", Norway's largest online newspaper, Verdens Gang ( http://www.vg.no), run their entire web site through two Varnish proxy servers, where they previously needed 12 servers!