three lines of code to enable HTTP response compression in our .NET application.

When I was working on a stock portfolio management project, it served real-time portfolio data to 15,000 active traders across mobile and desktop applications. Response times averaged 2.3 seconds for portfolio requests during market hours, causing traders to miss critical opportunities. The investigation revealed that our API responses contained detailed financial data, averaging 92KB per request.

The solution required adding three lines of code to enable HTTP response compression in our .NET application.

Performance Problem

Financial APIs returning comprehensive market data face a fundamental issue that is — network transfer time dominates total response time. Our portfolio endpoint returned complete trading information including positions, performance metrics, and market analysis.

A typical trading response contained extensive financial data with detailed position information, real-time quotes, historical performance metrics, and risk assessments. As per the network tab, 81% of total request time consisted of data transfer, while server processing completed within 165ms.

We Implemented

Response compression reduces payload size by encoding HTTP responses using algorithms that eliminate redundant data patterns.

Modern browsers automatically handle decompression without additional client-side code.

Add response compression to your .NET application:

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddResponseCompression();

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseResponseCompression();

app.Run();

The middleware intercepts outgoing responses and applies compression when the client indicates support through the Accept-Encoding header.

Measuring the Impact

We measured response characteristics using browser developer tools and automated testing across different network conditions for our trading platform’s portfolio endpoint.

162KB compressed file:
- Cable: 78ms to download (fast network)
- 3G: 470ms to download (slow network)
- Total 3G time: 650ms (includes server processing + network transfer)

Mobile traders experienced the most significant improvements. Our analytics showed:

  • 3G connections: 75% reduction in total request time
  • 4G connections: 58% reduction in total request time
  • WiFi connections: 34% reduction in total request time

Server CPU utilization increased by approximately 9% due to compression processing, while bandwidth consumption decreased by 80%.

Browser Compatibility

Response compression operates transparently across all modern browsers. The client-server negotiation happens automatically:

  • Browser sends Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br header
  • The server compresses the response and adds Content-Encoding: gzip header
  • The browser decompresses content automatically
  • The application code receives uncompressed data

No client-side modifications are required.

Think…

Response compression provides maximum benefit for:

  • JSON APIs with large payloads
  • Text-based responses (HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript)
  • Responses exceeding 10KB in size

Compression offers minimal benefit for:

  • Binary content (images, videos, archives)
  • Already compressed data
  • Responses smaller than 5KB

Monitor server CPU usage after implementation, as compression processing requires additional computational resources. Most applications handle this overhead without performance degradation.

Conclusion

The 80% bandwidth reduction also decreased our monthly data transfer costs by $2,400 across our server infrastructure. Trading activity metrics improved correspondingly, with average session duration increasing by 41% and trade execution rates increasing by 28%.