Web Performance 101: 4 Recommendations to Improve Web Performance

Web Performance and the impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 and QUIC
Jean Tunis

As websites continue to advance, the underlying protocols that they run on top of must change in order to meet the demands of user expected page load times. This blog is the second in a series on APMdigest where I will discuss web application performance and how new protocols like SPDY, HTTP/2, and QUIC will hopefully improve it so we can have happy website users.

Start with Web Performance 101: The Bandwidth Myth

Here are some common recommendations to optimize the steps of a web page request. Having looked at a number of web applications over the years, there have been numerous recommendations I have made over and over. Each web app is different, so these recommendations don't apply to every one of them, but should offer some guidance.

1. Reduce latency between user and server

I talked about this one in my last blog. It's not the bandwidth that matters most; it's latency. You need to reduce time it takes for a packet to go from your user or visitor to your server.

Whether the users are coming from the Internet or within the Intranet, the goal is to make the latency is short as possible. You can't get around the physics around distance, but there are some things you can do.

Externally, you have CDN providers that can help caching. Internally, you can deploy WAN optimization devices to do the same, and more.

If you have more control, you can simply ensure that your application is used by those who are closer to the server.

Closer distance between user and server can mask a lot of issues with an efficient application.

2. Increase number of connections, but up to a point

You want to maximize the number of connections you are making to the server to get as much data back to the visitor as possible. With HTTP/1.1, you don't want just one connection.

But you don't want too many connections either. Too many will start to impact the resources on both the server and the visitor's PC. And that would be bad for web performance.

Opening up these connections takes time as well. The TCP 3-way handshake needs to occur. It would occur every time, and if latency is not low enough, site visitors are impacted by this for every new connection that gets opened.

3. Compress all data

You want to minimize the amount of data that gets sent to the visitor's browser for it to download or render on the computer screen. So file sizes should only be as big as they need to be. If they cannot get any smaller, they should be compressed if that's possible.

This is something that doesn't happen enough. Nearly every modern browser supports gzip compression, yet some servers out there still do not have it implemented.

4. Increase server resources

Like bandwidth, server resources have become less of a constraint over the years. We now have multi-core, GHz processors, TB storage, GB RAM, etc. But there are still times when a website is using up these resources, and the immediate way to reduce response time may be to increase server resources. Due to the availability of such resources, it's usually not a big issue upgrading.

There are many other recommendations. This is just a sample of the things that can be done to improve web performance.

In upcoming blogs on APMdigest, I will explore the impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 and QUIC on web performance.

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Web Performance 101: 4 Recommendations to Improve Web Performance

Web Performance and the impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 and QUIC
Jean Tunis

As websites continue to advance, the underlying protocols that they run on top of must change in order to meet the demands of user expected page load times. This blog is the second in a series on APMdigest where I will discuss web application performance and how new protocols like SPDY, HTTP/2, and QUIC will hopefully improve it so we can have happy website users.

Start with Web Performance 101: The Bandwidth Myth

Here are some common recommendations to optimize the steps of a web page request. Having looked at a number of web applications over the years, there have been numerous recommendations I have made over and over. Each web app is different, so these recommendations don't apply to every one of them, but should offer some guidance.

1. Reduce latency between user and server

I talked about this one in my last blog. It's not the bandwidth that matters most; it's latency. You need to reduce time it takes for a packet to go from your user or visitor to your server.

Whether the users are coming from the Internet or within the Intranet, the goal is to make the latency is short as possible. You can't get around the physics around distance, but there are some things you can do.

Externally, you have CDN providers that can help caching. Internally, you can deploy WAN optimization devices to do the same, and more.

If you have more control, you can simply ensure that your application is used by those who are closer to the server.

Closer distance between user and server can mask a lot of issues with an efficient application.

2. Increase number of connections, but up to a point

You want to maximize the number of connections you are making to the server to get as much data back to the visitor as possible. With HTTP/1.1, you don't want just one connection.

But you don't want too many connections either. Too many will start to impact the resources on both the server and the visitor's PC. And that would be bad for web performance.

Opening up these connections takes time as well. The TCP 3-way handshake needs to occur. It would occur every time, and if latency is not low enough, site visitors are impacted by this for every new connection that gets opened.

3. Compress all data

You want to minimize the amount of data that gets sent to the visitor's browser for it to download or render on the computer screen. So file sizes should only be as big as they need to be. If they cannot get any smaller, they should be compressed if that's possible.

This is something that doesn't happen enough. Nearly every modern browser supports gzip compression, yet some servers out there still do not have it implemented.

4. Increase server resources

Like bandwidth, server resources have become less of a constraint over the years. We now have multi-core, GHz processors, TB storage, GB RAM, etc. But there are still times when a website is using up these resources, and the immediate way to reduce response time may be to increase server resources. Due to the availability of such resources, it's usually not a big issue upgrading.

There are many other recommendations. This is just a sample of the things that can be done to improve web performance.

In upcoming blogs on APMdigest, I will explore the impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 and QUIC on web performance.

Related Links

Hot Topics

The Latest

Closing the Gap in Modern Tech and the Tools Meant to Monitor Them

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...

MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Podcast - Episode 23: NetOps Labor Shortage

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 23, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the NetOps labor shortage ... 

Why FinOps Rewrote Its Mission and What It Signals for Technology Management

Technology management is evolving, and in turn, so is the scope of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation recently updated their mission statement from "advancing the people who manage the value of cloud" to "advancing the people who manage the value of technology." This seemingly small change solidifies a larger evolution: FinOps practitioners have organically expanded to be focused on more than just cloud cost optimization. Today, FinOps teams are largely — and quickly — expanding their job descriptions, evolving into a critical function for managing the full value of technology ...

Clearing the Path to AI: Why Vendor Consolidation Matters Now

Enterprises are under pressure to scale AI quickly. Yet despite considerable investment, adoption continues to stall. One of the most overlooked reasons is vendor sprawl ... In reality, no organization deliberately sets out to create sprawling vendor ecosystems. More often, complexity accumulates over time through well-intentioned initiatives, such as enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts, point solutions, or decentralized sourcing strategies ...

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Observability at a Crossroads: AI, Economics, Complexity and the Enduring Power of Open Source

The 2026 Observability Survey from Grafana Labs paints a vivid picture of an industry maturing fast, where AI is welcomed with careful conditions, SaaS economics are reshaping spending decisions, complexity remains a defining challenge, and open standards continue to underpin it all ...

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The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...

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AI workloads require an enormous amount of computing power ... What's also becoming abundantly clear is just how quickly AI's computing needs are leading to enterprise systems failure. According to Cockroach Labs' State of AI Infrastructure 2026 report, enterprise systems are much closer to failure than their organizations realize. The report ... suggests AI scale could cause widespread failures in as little as one year — making it a clear risk for business performance and reliability.

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The quietest week your engineering team has ever had might also be its best. No alarms going off. No escalations. No frantic Teams or Slack threads at 2 a.m. Everything humming along exactly as it should. And somewhere in a leadership meeting, someone looks at the metrics dashboard, sees a flat line of incidents and says: "Seems like things are pretty calm over there. Do we really need all those people?" ... I've spent many years in engineering, and this pattern keeps repeating ...