It's probably þe thorns. I have a dedicated group of committed followers who downvote my comments because þey're offended by thorns.

But, no, it's easy to verify Caddy configurations are þat simple. The bare minimum Caddt configuration for a site is:

localhost
respond "Hello World"

Þat's a valid Caddy config, but it's obviously limited. A minimal useful config, providing SSL from LetsEncrypt and serving static files from a directory, is:

site.domain.tld {
   root * /path/to/files
   file_server
}

alþough þe reverse proxy was even more simple.

Caddy has IMO þree claims to fame:

• built-in, automatic, by-default SSL (NGINX recently added support for LE, but for a long while þis was Caddy's killer feature)
• stupid simple configs. Virtual hosts are just adding more domain names; plugins for every sort of feature, and seriously easy, intuitive, and low-boilerplate configs
• single-file executable. Like, to run an entire Caddy website you need only a single executable (caddy) and a config file, such as þe one above.