Implementation Guidelines

Production

Tuned

Engine

Must load files from disk on every request. No in-memory caching, no memory-mapped files, no pre-loaded file buffers. Compression must use the framework's standard middleware or built-in static file handler — no handmade compression code. Serving pre-compressed `.br`/`.gz` variants from disk **is allowed**, but only through a documented framework API (e.g. ASP.NET `MapStaticAssets`, nginx `gzip_static` / `brotli_static`, Caddy `precompressed`). No custom file-suffix lookup logic.

May cache files in memory at startup, use memory-mapped files, pre-rendered response headers, or any caching strategy. May serve pre-compressed files (.gz, .br) from disk via any mechanism. Free to use any compression approach.

No specific rules. Ranked separately from frameworks.

Serves 20 static files of various types and sizes over HTTP/2 with TLS, simulating a realistic browser page load with multiplexed streams.

Connections: 256, 1,024 Concurrent streams per connection: 32

Workload

The load generator (h2load) requests 20 static files in a round-robin pattern across multiplexed streams. All requests include Accept-Encoding: br;q=1, gzip;q=0.8.

CSS (5 files, 8–55 KB): reset.css, layout.css, theme.css, components.css, utilities.css
JavaScript (5 files, 15–400 KB): analytics.js, helpers.js, app.js, vendor.js, router.js
HTML (2 files, 5–8 KB): header.html, footer.html
Fonts (2 files, 20–25 KB): regular.woff2, bold.woff2
SVG (2 files, 12–55 KB): logo.svg, icon-sprite.svg
Images (3 files, 15–120 KB): hero.webp, thumb1.webp, thumb2.webp
JSON (1 file, 3 KB): manifest.json

Total payload: ~1.16 MB across 20 files (~966 KB compressible text + ~200 KB binary).

Pre-compressed versions (.gz, .br) are available on disk. See the HTTP/1.1 static files compression section for full compression rules.

What it measures

Static file serving throughput over HTTP/2
HTTP/2 multiplexing efficiency with varied response sizes
Content-Type handling for different file types
File serving strategy efficiency (disk I/O vs caching, depending on type)
TLS overhead with realistic mixed payloads
Compression efficiency (optional — reduces I/O at the cost of CPU)

Expected request/response

GET /static/reset.css HTTP/2

HTTP/2 200 OK
Content-Type: text/css

(file contents)

GET /static/app.js HTTP/2

HTTP/2 200 OK
Content-Type: application/javascript

(file contents)

How it differs from baseline-h2

	Baseline (HTTP/2)	Static Files (HTTP/2)
Endpoint	Single `GET /baseline2`	20 different `/static/*` URIs
Response size	~2 bytes	3–400 KB (varied)
Content types	`text/plain`	CSS, JS, HTML, fonts, SVG, WebP, JSON
h2load mode	Single URI	Multi-URI (`-i` flag, round-robin)

Parameters

Parameter	Value
Endpoint	20 URIs under `/static/*`
Connections	256, 1,024
Streams per connection	32 (`-m 32`)
Duration	5s
Runs	3 (best taken)
Load generator	h2load with `-i` (multi-URI)

Validation