Web · Notes
HTTP/2 in practice
HTTP/2 keeps the HTTP request and response model while changing how messages are carried over the connection.
Streams
Requests are split into frames and assigned to logical streams. Several streams can coexist on the same TCP connection rather than requiring one connection for every request.
TCP connection
├─ stream 1 → HTML
├─ stream 3 → CSS
├─ stream 5 → image
└─ stream 7 → another request
Why it helps
Connection reuse reduces repeated TCP and TLS setup, while multiplexing lets independent HTTP exchanges share a connection.
One remaining limitation
HTTP/2 still commonly runs over TCP, so packet loss can temporarily delay multiple streams at the transport layer even though the HTTP streams themselves are independent.