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Web Performance and the Impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 & QUIC - Part 1

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 first in a 5-part 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

Start with Web Performance 101: 4 Recommendations to Improve Web Performance

So How Are We Doing?

In my last blog, I talked about all the different recommendations I've provided or come across over the years.

How are we doing with that? Are website owners out there listening?

Well, I decided to take a look at the archive — HTTP Archive, that is.

With HTTP Archive, I can look at some worldwide statistics on thousands of websites it monitors.

Let's look at bytes being sent to the browser.


As we can see, the average total byte size of a web page is a little over 2.3MB. And look at the biggest percentage in type of files: images account for about 63% of worldwide page sizes. Those file sizes can be reduced or minimized.

Okay. So maybe that was an outlier. In Performance Engineering, we never want to focus too much on averages. Percentiles and trends are things that give us better insight into whether something should be a concern or not.

So let's look at the trend in the past year.


We see that the trend of transfer sizes has been going up in the past year. Websites across the world have increased in size by about 18%. At this rate, if it continues, in 5 years, websites will increase in size by almost 300%! That's crazy!

While I think this is unlikely to happen with the increased importance placed on web performance, it's unbelievable to think we're increasing at this rate.

In my last blog, I mentioned how important it is to reduce latency. One of the ways to do that is to implement a content delivery network.

So let's see how that's going across the world.


We can see that only about 14% of websites have implemented a Content Delivery Network (CDN). With free CDNs out there, everyone should be using a CDN.

It's also encouraging that we're trending upward on that one.

Now that we get a sense of how websites are doing with HTTP requests across the globe, I want to look at the the protocol itself. If website operators are only slowly making some improvements, what can be done with the protocol itself to help?

Read Web Performance and the Impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 & QUIC - Part 2, covering the limitations of HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1.

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Web Performance and the Impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 & QUIC - Part 1

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 first in a 5-part 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

Start with Web Performance 101: 4 Recommendations to Improve Web Performance

So How Are We Doing?

In my last blog, I talked about all the different recommendations I've provided or come across over the years.

How are we doing with that? Are website owners out there listening?

Well, I decided to take a look at the archive — HTTP Archive, that is.

With HTTP Archive, I can look at some worldwide statistics on thousands of websites it monitors.

Let's look at bytes being sent to the browser.


As we can see, the average total byte size of a web page is a little over 2.3MB. And look at the biggest percentage in type of files: images account for about 63% of worldwide page sizes. Those file sizes can be reduced or minimized.

Okay. So maybe that was an outlier. In Performance Engineering, we never want to focus too much on averages. Percentiles and trends are things that give us better insight into whether something should be a concern or not.

So let's look at the trend in the past year.


We see that the trend of transfer sizes has been going up in the past year. Websites across the world have increased in size by about 18%. At this rate, if it continues, in 5 years, websites will increase in size by almost 300%! That's crazy!

While I think this is unlikely to happen with the increased importance placed on web performance, it's unbelievable to think we're increasing at this rate.

In my last blog, I mentioned how important it is to reduce latency. One of the ways to do that is to implement a content delivery network.

So let's see how that's going across the world.


We can see that only about 14% of websites have implemented a Content Delivery Network (CDN). With free CDNs out there, everyone should be using a CDN.

It's also encouraging that we're trending upward on that one.

Now that we get a sense of how websites are doing with HTTP requests across the globe, I want to look at the the protocol itself. If website operators are only slowly making some improvements, what can be done with the protocol itself to help?

Read Web Performance and the Impact of SPDY, HTTP/2 & QUIC - Part 2, covering the limitations of HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...