HTTP/2
HTTP/2 is the second major version of the HTTP network protocol that powers the web, offering significant performance improvements over HTTP/1.1 through multiplexing, header compression, and server push.
HTTP/2 was designed to address the performance limitations of HTTP/1.1, which was standardized in 1997. The biggest improvement is multiplexing, the ability to send multiple requests and responses simultaneously over a single TCP connection. In HTTP/1.1, browsers had to open multiple connections and requests were processed sequentially, creating a bottleneck.
HTTP/2 requires HTTPS, another incentive to secure your site with an SSL certificate. Most modern web servers, CDNs, and hosting platforms support HTTP/2 by default. HTTP/3 (based on QUIC protocol using UDP instead of TCP) is the next evolution, offering even better performance for unreliable connections and reducing connection establishment time.
In practice
- An image-heavy photography portfolio loaded 40% faster after enabling HTTP/2 because 100+ images could be requested simultaneously instead of 6 at a time
- A web application that made 50+ API calls per page saw request completion time drop by 35% after upgrading to HTTP/2 multiplexing
- A hosting provider enabled HTTP/2 across all their servers, and their customers' average page load times decreased by 25% without any code changes
- An e-commerce site's product pages (which load 80+ resources each) saw the biggest improvement from HTTP/2, from 3.5s to 1.8s on average
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