HTTP Protocol Checker
Check which HTTP protocol version your website uses. Verify HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (QUIC) support for optimal performance.
Understanding HTTP Protocols
The HTTP protocol version your server uses directly impacts page load speed. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 offer significant performance improvements over the legacy HTTP/1.1 protocol.
01What is HTTP/2?
HTTP/2 is a major revision of the HTTP protocol standardized in 2015. It introduces multiplexing, allowing multiple requests to be sent over a single TCP connection simultaneously. This eliminates the head-of-line blocking problem in HTTP/1.1.
HTTP/2 also uses HPACK compression for headers, reducing overhead significantly.
02What is HTTP/3?
HTTP/3 is the latest version, standardized in 2022. It replaces TCP with QUIC, a UDP-based transport protocol developed by Google. QUIC provides faster connection establishment (0-RTT) and better handling of packet loss.
HTTP/3 is especially beneficial for mobile users and high-latency connections.
Evolution of HTTP
HTTP/1.1
Persistent connections, but one request at a time
HTTP/2
Multiplexing, header compression, server push
HTTP/3 Draft
QUIC protocol, improved mobile performance
HTTP/3 Standard
Official RFC 9114 standardization
Faster Page Loads
HTTP/2 can improve page load times by 30-50% compared to HTTP/1.1
Lower Latency
HTTP/3's QUIC protocol reduces connection setup time to zero round-trips
Better Mobile Experience
QUIC handles network switches and packet loss more gracefully
How to Enable Modern HTTP
Nginx
HTTP/2: 'listen 443 ssl http2;' - HTTP/3 requires additional quic module configuration
Cloudflare
HTTP/2 enabled by default. HTTP/3 can be enabled in Network settings
Apache
Enable mod_http2 module and add 'Protocols h2 http/1.1' to config
CDN/Edge
Most modern CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront) support HTTP/2 and HTTP/3