HTTP/2 support in Azure Front Door

Azure Front Door supports HTTP/2 for client connections on all configurations. You don't need to take any extra action to enable it.

HTTP/2 is a significant update to HTTP/1.1, offering faster web performance by reducing response times. It retains the familiar HTTP methods, status codes, and semantics of HTTP/1.1 to enhance user experience. Although HTTP/2 works with both HTTP and HTTPS, many web browsers only support HTTP/2 over Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Note

For routes without gRPC enabled, Azure Front Door uses HTTP/1.1 to communicate with origins. During the public preview, gRPC-enabled routes in Azure Front Door Standard and Premium use HTTPS and HTTP/2 for both client-to-Front Door and Front Door-to-origin connections. For configuration and limitations, see gRPC support in Azure Front Door (preview).

Benefits of HTTP/2

HTTP/2 offers several benefits:

• Multiplexing and concurrency: Unlike HTTP/1.1, which requires multiple TCP connections for multiple resource requests, HTTP/2 allows multiple resources to be requested over a single TCP connection, reducing performance costs.

• Header compression: Compressing HTTP headers for served resources reduces the amount of data sent over the network.

• Stream dependencies: Clients can indicate resource priorities to the server, optimizing resource loading.

Browser support for HTTP/2

All major browsers support HTTP/2 in their current versions. Browsers that don't support HTTP/2 automatically revert to HTTP/1.1.

Browser	Minimum version
Microsoft Edge	12
Google Chrome	43
Mozilla Firefox	38
Opera	32
Safari	9

Next steps

To learn more about HTTP/2, visit the following resources:

• HTTP/2 specification homepage
• Official HTTP/2 FAQ
• Learn how to create an Azure Front Door profile
• Learn how Front Door works