Node js Gzip compression

Question

Am I wrong in finding that Node js does no gzip compression and there are no modules out there to perform gzip compression  How can anyone use a web server that has no compression  What am I missing here  Should I try to mdash gasp mdash port the algorithm to JavaScript for server-side use

User · Answer

Even if you re not using express  you can still use their middleware  The compression module is what I m using   var http   require  http   var fs   require  fs   var compress   require  compression   http createServer function request  response      var noop   function      useDefaultOptions        compress useDefaultOptions  request response noop     mutates the response object    response writeHead 200    fs createReadStream  index html   pipe response     listen 1337

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Generally speaking  for a production web application  you will want to put your node js app behind a lightweight reverse proxy such as nginx or lighttpd  Among the many benefits of this setup  you can configure the reverse proxy to do http compression or even tls compression  without having to change your application source code

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Node v0 6 x has a stable zlib module in core now - there are some examples on how to use it server-side in the docs too   An example  taken from the docs       server example    Running a gzip operation on every request is quite expensive     It would be much more efficient to cache the compressed buffer  var zlib   require  zlib    var http   require  http    var fs   require  fs    http createServer function request  response      var raw   fs createReadStream  index html      var acceptEncoding   request headers  accept-encoding      if   acceptEncoding        acceptEncoding                 Note  this is not a conformant accept-encoding parser       See http   www w3 org Protocols rfc2616 rfc2616-sec14 html sec14 3   if  acceptEncoding match   bdeflate b          response writeHead 200     content-encoding    deflate          raw pipe zlib createDeflate    pipe response       else if  acceptEncoding match   bgzip b          response writeHead 200     content-encoding    gzip          raw pipe zlib createGzip    pipe response       else       response writeHead 200           raw pipe response          listen 1337

User · Answer

Although you can gzip using a reverse proxy such as nginx  lighttpd or in varnish  It can be beneficial to have most http optimisations such as gzipping at the application level so that you can have a much granular approach on what asset s to gzip   I have actually created my own gzip module for expressjs   connect called gzippo https   github com tomgco gzippo although new it does do the job  Plus it uses node-compress instead of spawning the unix gzip command

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As of today  epxress compress   seems to be doing a brilliant job of this   In any express app just call this use express compress       I m running locomotive on top of express personally and this is working beautifully  I can t speak to any other libraries or frameworks built on top of express but as long as they honor full stack transparency you should be fine

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It s been a few good days with node  and you re right to say that you can t create a webserver without gzip   There are quite a lot options given on the modules page on the Node js Wiki  I tried out most of them  but this is the one which I m finally using -    https   github com donnerjack13589 node gzip  v1 0 is also out and it has been quite stable so far

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1- Install compression  npm install compression   2- Use it  var express       require  express   var compression   require  compression    var app   express   app use compression      compression on Github

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If you re using Express  then you can use its compress method as part of the configuration   var express   require  express    var app   express createServer    app use express compress       And you can find more on compress here  http   expressjs com api html compress  And if you re not using Express    Why not  man       NOTE   thanks to  ankitjaininfo  This middleware should be one of the first you  use  to ensure all responses are compressed  Ensure that this is above your routes and static handler  eg  how I have it above    NOTE   thanks to  ciro-costa  Since express 4 0  the express compress middleware is deprecated   It was inherited from connect 3 0 and express no longer includes connect 3 0   Check Express Compression for getting the middleware

User · Answer

How about this      node-compress   A streaming compression   gzip module for node js   To install  ensure that you have libz installed  and run    node-waf configure   node-waf build   This will put the compress node binary module in build default

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For compressing the file you can use below code  var fs   require  fs    var zlib   require  zlib    fs createReadStream  input txt   pipe zlib createGzip     pipe fs createWriteStream  input txt gz     console log  File Compressed       For decompressing the same file you can use below code  var fs   require  fs    var zlib   require  zlib    fs createReadStream  input txt gz    pipe zlib createGunzip     pipe fs createWriteStream  input txt     console log  File Decompressed

User · Answer

Use gzip compression Gzip compressing can greatly decrease the size of the response body and hence increase the speed of a web app  Use the compression middleware for gzip compression in your Express app  For example  var compression   require  compression    var express   require  express   var app   express   app use compression

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There are multiple Gzip middlewares for Express  KOA and others  For example  https   www npmjs com package express-static-gzip  However  Node is awfully bad at doing CPU intensive tasks like gzipping  SSL termination  etc  Instead  use a    real    middleware services like nginx or HAproxy  see bullet 3 here  http   goldbergyoni com checklist-best-practice-of-node-js-in-production

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While as others have right pointed out using a front end webserver such as nginx can handle this implicitly  another option  is to use nodejitsu s excellent node-http-proxy to serve up your assets   eg   httpProxy createServer   require  connect-gzip   gzip     9000   localhost    listen 8000     This example demonstrates support for gzip compression through the use of connect middleware module  connect-gzip

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