Comparison of HTTP and HTTP/2

This comparison blog post is to show why you should move from HTTP to HTTPS and why you should add support to HTTP/2. Before comparing HTTP vs HTTP/2. Lets see what is HTTP first.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

HTTP is the set of rules for communication on the World Wide Web (www). HTTP is an application protocol which runs on top of the TCP/IP layer. When a user requests a web page in the browser, HTTP takes the request and establish the connection between the web server and a client.

Points to note

Site using http (non-secure) screenshot:

Not Secure

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)

HTTPS is the secured version of the HTTP. Communication between web server and the client are encrypted by Transport Layer Security (TLS) or by Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

site using https (secure) screenshot:

Secure

HTTP vs HTTPS test

Each test loads 360 unique, non-cached images (0.62 MB total). After multiple tests, HTTPS were able to load 37% faster than unsecured HTTP. One more reason to move from HTTP to HTTPS.

Results screenshot

HTTP VS HTTPS

Points to note

Hypertext Transfer Protocol 2 (HTTP/2)

HTTP/2 is next version of HTTP. HTTP/2 solves many of the HTTP/1.1 problems.

Points to note

HTTPS vs HTTP/2 test

This test is similar to the previous test but with HTTP/2 support. Each test loads 36 unique, non-cached images (292 KB total). After multiple tests, HTTP/2 were able to load 80% faster than HTTPS.

Results screenshot:

HTTPS VS HTTP/2

Browser Support for HTTP/2

Source caniuse.com

CDN's which supports HTTP/2

Conclusion

HTTP/2 let us increase the performance of our site without any need for shredding, spriting, concatenating etc. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't do all that. But it clearly shows us the importance of moving from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/2.

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