HTTP pipelining appeared in HTTP/1.1. It allows clients to send multiple requests at once, without waiting for an answer. Servers can also send multiple answers without closing their socket. This results in fewer roundtrips and faster load times. This is particularly useful for satellite Internet connections and other connections with high latency as separate requests need not be made for each file.

Since it is possible to fit several HTTP requests in the same TCP packet, HTTP pipelining allows fewer TCP packets to be sent over the network, reducing network load.

HTTP pipelining requires both the client and the server to support it. Servers are required to support it in order to be HTTP/1.1 compliant, although they are not required to pipeline responses, just to accept pipelined requests.

External links

• A FAQ on pipelining, courtesy of mozilla.org.
• A W3C page measuring the benefits of pipelining, along with modern design technologies (CSS and PNG)

HTTP

pipelining_HTTP