Glossary

Gzip & Brotli Compression

Gzip and Brotli are HTTP compression methods that shrink text-based responses before sending, cutting transfer size and speeding up page loads.

Gzip and Brotli are compression algorithms used to shrink HTTP responses — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other text — before they travel over the network, reducing bytes transferred and speeding up loads.

How they compare

Gzip — universally supported and fast; the long-standing default.
Brotli — newer, developed by Google, typically compresses text 15–25% smaller than gzip at comparable speed, and is now supported by all modern browsers.

How it is negotiated

The browser sends Accept-Encoding: gzip, br; the server replies with Content-Encoding: br (or gzip) and the compressed body. It applies only to compressible text — already-compressed images and video are skipped.

Why it matters for hosting

Compression is one of the cheapest performance wins, improving core-web-vitals and reducing bandwidth. Servers like nginx, apache, and litespeed, and every cdn, support it — though Brotli sometimes needs explicit enabling.

See also

Caching Caching stores copies of data or pages so repeat requests are served instantly, reducing server work and dramatically speeding up websites. Core Web Vitals Core Web Vitals are Google’s user-experience metrics — LCP, INP, and CLS — that measure loading, interactivity, and visual stability of a page. CDN (Content Delivery Network) A CDN is a worldwide network of edge servers that cache and serve your site close to visitors, cutting latency and absorbing traffic spikes. TTFB (Time To First Byte) TTFB measures how long after a request the first byte of the response arrives, reflecting server, network, and backend processing speed.

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