HTTP/3 and QUIC
HTTP/3 is the latest version of HTTP, built on QUIC, a transport protocol running over UDP. QUIC combines connection setup and TLS encryption into fewer round trips and handles each stream independently, so packet loss on one request does not stall others.
Technical Architecture & Deep-Dive
Mobile networks are lossy and users switch between Wi-Fi and cellular frequently. TCP-based protocols suffer here: lost packets block all streams, and changing networks breaks connections.
QUIC supports connection migration across networks and resumes sessions with zero round trip handshakes. Edge providers terminate HTTP/3 near users, giving mobile apps faster and more resilient API connections without changes to upstream backends.
Key Architectural Benefits
Implement HTTP/3 and QUIC at the Edge
Deploy lightweight API aggregation, edge caching, and secret injection in minutes without Docker containers or complex servers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Do my upstream APIs need to support HTTP/3?
No. The edge terminates HTTP/3 from clients and can use HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/2 to reach upstream APIs over its backbone.
Related Architecture Concepts
HTTP/2 multiplexing allows multiple requests and responses to travel concurrently over a single TCP connection as interleaved streams. Unlike HTTP/1.1, which processes one request per connection at a time, HTTP/2 removes the need for many parallel connections and reduces latency.
TLS handshake latency is the delay caused by negotiating an encrypted HTTPS connection before any application data is sent. The client and server exchange messages to agree on ciphers and verify certificates, costing one or more network round trips on top of TCP setup.
Mobile network latency is the delay data experiences traveling between a mobile device and a server over cellular or wireless networks. Radio wake-up time, high round trip times, packet loss, and network switching make mobile requests significantly slower and less predictable than wired connections.