qh:// - The Quite Ok HTTP Protocol

qh:// - The Quite Ok HTTP Protocol

Modern web protocols like HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 reduce bandwidth overhead through dynamic header compression (HPACK, QPACK), which requires complex state synchronization while increasing CPU overhead and implementation difficulty. This raises the question whether protocol complexity is necessary or if a simpler approach can achieve performance within 10-15% for typical web workloads.

This thesis presents QH (Quite OK HTTP), a deliberately simplified web protocol that replaces dynamic compression with a static header table based on empirical analysis of real-world header frequencies. QH uses binary message encoding with varint length prefixes and runs on QOTP, a UDP-based transport providing 0-RTT connections and mandatory encryption. The protocol omits dynamic compression, server push, and other complex HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 features to prioritize implementation simplicity.

We implemented QH in Go with complete client-server support and evaluated wire format efficiency against HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 using 110 test cases covering edge cases and real production traffic. Results show QH achieves 38.8% smaller wire format than HTTP/1.1 while remaining within 7-11% of HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 despite lacking dynamic compression, with optimal performance on request headers and small API payloads.

The evaluation quantifies the cost of simplicity: a 7-11% wire format overhead compared to dynamic compression in exchange for eliminating state synchronization, enabling stateless debugging, and reducing implementation complexity. This demonstrates that protocol simplicity and performance are not mutually exclusive for common web applications, providing guidance for future protocol design decisions.