Performance - Response compression

In this article

Compression with HTTPS

When to use Response Compression Middleware

Response compression

Accept-Encoding header values Middleware Supported Description
br Yes (default) Brotli compressed data format
deflate No DEFLATE compressed data format
exi No W3C Efficient XML Interchange
gzip Yes Gzip file format
identity Yes "No encoding" identifier: The response must not be encoded.
pack200-gzip No Network Transfer Format for Java Archives
* Yes Any available content encoding not explicitly requested
Header Role
Accept-Encoding Sent from the client to the server to indicate the content encoding schemes acceptable to the client.
Content-Encoding Sent from the server to the client to indicate the encoding of the content in the payload.
Content-Length When compression occurs, the Content-Length header is removed, since the body content changes when the response is compressed.
Content-MD5 When compression occurs, the Content-MD5 header is removed, since the body content has changed and the hash is no longer valid.
Content-Type Specifies the MIME type of the content. Every response should specify its Content-Type. The response compression middleware checks this value to determine if the response should be compressed. The response compression middleware specifies a set of default MIME types that it can encode, and they can bed replaced or added.
Vary When sent by the server with a value of Accept-Encoding to clients and proxies, the Vary header indicates to the client or proxy that it should cache (vary) responses based on the value of the Accept-Encoding header of the request. The result of returning content with the Vary: ```Accept-Encoding``` header is that both compressed and uncompressed responses are cached separately.

Configuration

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.EnableForHttps = true;
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

app.Run();

Providers

Brotli and Gzip compression providers

Note Documentation links to .NET reference source usually load the repository's default branch, which represents the current development for the next release of .NET. To select a tag for a specific release, use the Switch branches or tags dropdown list. For more information, see How to select a version tag of ASP.NET Core source code (dotnet/AspNetCore.Docs #26205).

using System.IO.Compression;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.EnableForHttps = true;
    options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
});

builder.Services.Configure<BrotliCompressionProviderOptions>(options =>
{
    options.Level = CompressionLevel.Fastest;
});

builder.Services.Configure<GzipCompressionProviderOptions>(options =>
{
    options.Level = CompressionLevel.SmallestSize;
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

app.Run();

using System.IO.Compression;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.EnableForHttps = true;
    options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
});

builder.Services.Configure<BrotliCompressionProviderOptions>(options =>
{
    options.Level = CompressionLevel.Fastest;
});

builder.Services.Configure<GzipCompressionProviderOptions>(options =>
{
    options.Level = CompressionLevel.SmallestSize;
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

app.Run();

Custom providers

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<CustomCompressionProvider>();
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

app.Run();

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;

public class CustomCompressionProvider : ICompressionProvider
{
    public string EncodingName => "mycustomcompression";
    public bool SupportsFlush => true;

    public Stream CreateStream(Stream outputStream)
    {
        // Replace with a custom compression stream wrapper.
        return outputStream;
    }
}

MIME types

Note Documentation links to .NET reference source usually load the repository's default branch, which represents the current development for the next release of .NET. To select a tag for a specific release, use the Switch branches or tags dropdown list. For more information, see How to select a version tag of ASP.NET Core source code (dotnet/AspNetCore.Docs #26205).

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;
using ResponseCompressionSample;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.EnableForHttps = true;
    options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<CustomCompressionProvider>();
    options.MimeTypes =
    ResponseCompressionDefaults.MimeTypes.Concat(
        new[] { "image/svg+xml" });
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

Adding the Vary header

Note Documentation links to .NET reference source usually load the repository's default branch, which represents the current development for the next release of .NET. To select a tag for a specific release, use the Switch branches or tags dropdown list. For more information, see How to select a version tag of ASP.NET Core source code (dotnet/AspNetCore.Docs #26205).

Middleware issue when behind an Nginx reverse proxy

Disabling IIS dynamic compression

Troubleshoot response compression

Azure deployed sample

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression;
using ResponseCompressionSample;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
{
    options.EnableForHttps = true;
    options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
    options.Providers.Add<CustomCompressionProvider>();
    options.MimeTypes =
    ResponseCompressionDefaults.MimeTypes.Concat(
        new[] { "image/svg+xml" });
});

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.Map("/trickle", async (HttpResponse httpResponse) =>
{
    httpResponse.ContentType = "text/plain;charset=utf-8";

    for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
    {
        await httpResponse.WriteAsync("a");
        await httpResponse.Body.FlushAsync();
        await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(50));
    }
});

app.Map("/testfile1kb.txt", () => Results.File(
    app.Environment.ContentRootFileProvider.GetFileInfo("testfile1kb.txt").PhysicalPath,
    "text/plain;charset=utf-8"));

app.Map("/banner.svg", () => Results.File(
    app.Environment.ContentRootFileProvider.GetFileInfo("banner.svg").PhysicalPath,
    "image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8"));

app.MapFallback(() => LoremIpsum.Text);

app.Run();

Additional resources

Note Documentation links to .NET reference source usually load the repository's default branch, which represents the current development for the next release of .NET. To select a tag for a specific release, use the Switch branches or tags dropdown list. For more information, see How to select a version tag of ASP.NET Core source code (dotnet/AspNetCore.Docs #26205).

Ref: Response compression in ASP.NET Core

Tags: SummaryAspNetCore