API Design · Junior · Question 47 of 75

Why might an API compress responses?

✓Correct answer: Gzip or Brotli shrink JSON a lot, reducing transfer time, especially on mobile networks
2It makes the server use less CPU
3Compression is required by HTTP

Explanation

Clients send Accept-Encoding; servers answer with Content-Encoding. Compression costs CPU, so proxies or CDNs often do it.

Further reading

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