Added Gzip + Brotli - got ~40% faster API responses in under an hour

Today I added Gzip + Brotli response compression to my backend.

Result: ~30–40% faster responses, especially for JSON-heavy endpoints.

Nothing fancy:

• Enabled Brotli first (when supported by the client)

• Fallback to Gzip

• No app-level changes, just server configuration

What surprised me is how noticeable the improvement was without touching business logic. Smaller payloads = faster TTFB, better UX, and lower bandwidth usage.

If you’re running an API and haven’t enabled compression yet, it’s one of the highest ROI optimizations you can do in under an hour.

Curious:
Do you rely only on CDN compression, or do you still enable it at the app/server level?