Nothing beats speed, but safety first. Cloudways has been working hard on improving the performance of the stack. Aiming to provide the finest hosting experience to its users, Cloudways has made its latest stack integration: HTTP/2.
This integration serves to the cause of improving the speed and security of your web apps.
Why HTTP/2?
HTTP/2 is a major update to the HTTP network protocol. For the last 20 years, HTTP/1.1 ruled the global internet. We cannot deny the fact that websites have significantly advanced in every aspect possible.However, with the passage of time, the fundamental web protocol, HTTP, lacked on so many potential grounds, for example, the Cookie Hack.
HTTP 1.1 has no session endpoint-identity feature and cyber criminals can replicate the last working session to compromise account passwords.
Under Controlled Environments
How Did HTTP/2 Come Into Being?
In May 2015, Internet Engineering Task Force declared HTTP/2 as the official internet protocol. This is considered as an expansion of Google’s collaboration with SPDY.
With the introduction of features, like multiplexing for swift data transfer; header compression to cut down the load of data transfer; and accurate page rendering, HTTP/2 is projected to perk up the performance and security of the modern-day websites.
How HTTP/2 Benefits You?
Now that HTTP/2 is here, things will look to move on at a better pace.
HTTP/2 significantly increases the speed of communication between the web servers and clients. Let us discuss a little about this formidable new entity.
HTTP/2 is the principal protocol through which data is transferred throughout the web. It has its roots based on the sketch of SPDY protocol. SPDY, a Google-developed now-deprecated, open-specification networking protocol, aims to look after a number of performance intricacies with HTTP/1.1.
One vital advantage of HTTP/2 is its capability to use a single TCP connection through a browser to a website for sending and receiving multiple requests. As a result, considerable performance gains and an improved online existence for your visitors to experience is the final outcome.
That’s not it, though.
Features like, server push, a general decline in developmental complexities, and complete support for the latest cipher suites, also makes it a timely yet important advancement.
Cloudways and HTTP/2: An Incomparable Duo
The main purpose of HTTP/2 on Cloudways Cloud Platform integration is faster and secured browsing experience. Websites and mobile applications, nowadays have become more obscured, as compared to 1999 when HTTP/1.1 was created. The introduction of HTTP/2 means that requests for resources—CSS, fonts, images, and JavaScript—all can be executed into a single request.
This increases the performance of your website by an approximate of 30% per page view. In one of our Pingdom tests, we used WooCommerce. This is what we got:
WooCommerce on HTTP/1.1
You can notice the performance performs well. It has an acceptable load time of 1.28 seconds.
WooCommerce on HTTP/2
Under HTTP/2, you can notice the load time dropping to 0.83 seconds with a smaller page size.
Summary
Like most features, HTTP/2 gets enabled in just a click. If you are interested in protecting your web app with HTTP/2. Plus, the best news is Let’s Encrypt SSL is compatible with HTTP/2. So, if you are looking to get free HTTP/2 protect, enable Let’s Encrypt first.
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].
