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HTTP/2 Test

HTTP/2 Test FAQ#

What is HTTP/2?

HTTP/2 is the first major HTTP protocol update since 1997 when HTTP/1.1 was first published by the IETF. The new HTTP protocol is needed to keep up with the exponential growth of the web. The successor of HTTP/1.1 brings significant improvement in efficiency, speed and security and is supported by most modern web browsers. A list of browsers that support HTTP/2 can be found on caniuse.com.

• HTTP/2 is binary, instead of textual.
• It is fully multiplexed, sending multiple requests in parallel over a single TCP connection.
• It uses header compression HPACK to reduce overhead.
• It allows servers to “push” responses proactively into client caches instead of waiting for a new request for each resource
• It uses the new ALPN extension which allows for faster-encrypted connections since the application protocol is determined during the initial connection.
• It reduces additional round trip times (RTT), making your website load faster without any optimization.
• Domain sharding and asset concatenation is no longer needed with HTTP/2.

HTTP/2 introduces other improvements, more details: HTTP/2 RFC7540

This test can check HTTP and HTTPS but most browsers only support HTTP/2 for HTTPS, which means you must migrate to HTTPS if you want to take advantage of the performance benefits.