Understanding how and why HTTP/3 has evolved

Report Summary

As probably a website"s most important protocol, Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) has undergone immense change over the last 5 years with the advent of HTTP/2. In it"s wake considerable enhancements to websites have been necessary to enable many promised performance benefits to be achieved.

HTTP/3 is now in the starting blocks again with much hype about performance and other benefits. As numerous blogs and articles full of misconceptions will undoubtedly fill our inboxes, Robix Marx of KU Leuven has written a trilogy of high quality articles that not only discusses why and how the protocol has come about, but also covers some of the many performance myths already circulating.

Each article takes about 10 minutes to read and the trilogy of papers is as follows:

• HTTP/3 From A To Z: Core Concepts (Part 1)

  This section gives an excellent understanding of why the need for HTTP/3 exists, especially so quickly after HTTP/2. It also covers how core architecture and components and why it is different from HTTPǘ.

• HTTP/3 Performance Improvements (Part 2)

  Much hype exists about how HTTP/3 delivers better performance than its predecessors. This section looks at each of these and explains why in many cases the hype is pure myth. The well written and in-depth explanations also explain how and where performance improvements can be achieved through concepts including head-of-line blocking, congestion control and 0-RTT (zero round trip time).

• HTTP/3 Practical Deployment Options (Part 3)

  Still in the early phases of deployment understanding and preparation of how and why the new protocol is being deployed across the industry and also many of the considerations as to why it is not yet being fully deployed. As with HTTP/2 it took some time after the early adopters implement it before it became the mainstream protocol and this section is of further value as in Part 1, Robin reviews why both protocols may coexist indefinitely.

For me, the good news is that, unlike HTTP/2, little needs to be done to gain HTTP/ benefits for the website.

Overall, these 3 articles are recommended for those with an interest in how a core web protocol is evolving.