HTTP2QUIC

HTTP2QUIC is the concept of running the HTTP/2 protocol atop the QUIC transport layer, rather than over TCP. In this arrangement, HTTP/2 frames are transmitted within QUIC streams, leveraging QUIC’s multiplexing, stream-level flow control, and integrated encryption to reduce latency and head-of-line blocking compared with TCP-based HTTP/2.

History and status: In the late 2010s, researchers and browser developers explored deploying HTTP/2 over QUIC as a stepping stone toward a QUIC-based HTTP architecture. These efforts contributed to the broader shift within the IETF toward standardizing HTTP over QUIC as HTTP/3. Today, formal standardization focuses on HTTP/3, which maps HTTP semantics onto QUIC with distinct framing and header compression. HTTP2QUIC as a separate, widely adopted protocol did not become a standard, and HTTP/3 is the primary approach for QUIC-enabled HTTP.

Technical considerations: If used, HTTP2QUIC would rely on QUIC’s crypto and connection establishment to reduce handshake overhead. It would maintain HTTP/2’s stream and flow-control semantics for applications built on HTTP/2, while delivering traffic over QUIC’s reliable, multiplexed transport. However, production deployments would face compatibility challenges, the need to adapt tooling, and the fact that HTTP/3 provides equivalent or improved performance with a more explicit QUIC-centric design. The shift toward HTTP/3 reflects design choices that favor QUIC’s stream semantics, header compression via QPACK, and a reworked framing model over relying on HTTP/2 within QUIC.

See also HTTP/3, QUIC, HTTP/2, HPACK, QPACK.