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HTTP/2 is a major revision of the HTTP protocol that makes websites load faster. All Stablepoint hosting supports HTTP/2 out of the box — there is nothing you need to enable.

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What HTTP/2 improves

  • Multiplexing — multiple requests and responses share a single connection simultaneously, instead of queuing. This eliminates the head-of-line blocking problem of HTTP/1.1.
  • Header compression (HPACK) — request and response headers are compressed, reducing overhead on every request.
  • Server push — the server can proactively send resources the browser will need.
  • Binary protocol — more efficient to parse than HTTP/1.1’s text format.
The practical effect: pages with many resources (images, scripts, stylesheets) load noticeably faster, because they no longer wait in line for a limited number of connections.

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Requirements

Browsers only use HTTP/2 over HTTPS, so your site needs a valid SSL certificate. All Stablepoint plans include free SSL certificates, so this is already covered.

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Checking that your site uses HTTP/2

  1. Open your site in Chrome or Firefox.
  2. Open developer tools (F12) and go to the Network tab.
  3. Right-click the column headers and enable the Protocol column.
  4. Reload the page — resources served over HTTP/2 show h2 in the protocol column.
Alternatively, use an online checker such as https://tools.keycdn.com/http2-test.

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Optimization notes

Some old HTTP/1.1 optimization techniques are unnecessary (or counterproductive) with HTTP/2:
  • Domain sharding (spreading assets across multiple domains) — no longer needed; a single multiplexed connection is more efficient.
  • Image sprites and file concatenation — less important; many small files are handled efficiently, and separate files cache more granularly.
Standard good practices — compression, caching headers, optimized images — still apply and complement HTTP/2 well.