The Savings
Gzipping generally reduces the response size by about 70%. Table 6-2 shows examples of size reductions for scripts and stylesheets (small and large). In addition to gzip, the results for deflate are also shown.
Table 6-2. Compression sizes using gzip and deflate
File type | Uncompressed size | Gzip size | Gzip savings | Deflate size | Deflate savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Script | 3,277 bytes | 1076 bytes | 67% | 1112 bytes | 66% |
Script | 39,713 bytes | 14,488 bytes | 64% | 16,583 bytes | 58% |
Stylesheet | 968 bytes | 426 bytes | 56% | 463 bytes | 52% |
Stylesheet | 14,122 bytes | 3,748 bytes | 73% | 4,665 bytes | 67% |
It's clear from Table 6-2 why gzip is typically the choice for compression. Gzip reduces the response by about 66% overall, while deflate reduces the response by 60%. For these files, gzip compresses ~6% more than deflate.