Compression

Client/Server Request Compression​

In addition to optimized cached Server Responses you can also elect to compress HTTP Requests in any C#/.NET Service Clients by specifying the Compression Type you wish to use, e.g:

var client = new JsonServiceClient(baseUrl) {
    RequestCompressionType = CompressionTypes.GZip,
};

var client = new JsonHttpClient(baseUrl) {
    RequestCompressionType = CompressionTypes.Deflate,
};

var response = client.Post(new Request { ... });

Where sending any HTTP Request containing a Request Body (e.g. POST/PUT) will send a compressed Request body to the Server where it's now able to be transparently decompressed and deserialized into your Request DTO.

[CompressResponse] Attribute​

You can now selectively choose which Services should be compressed with the new [CompressResponse] attribute to compress responses for clients which support compression, which can be applied to most Response Types, e.g:

[CompressResponse]
public class CompressedServices : Service
{
    public object Any(CompressDto request) => new CompressExamplesResponse(); 
    public object Any(CompressString request) => "foo"; 
    public object Any(CompressBytes request) => "foo".ToUtf8Bytes(); 
    public object Any(CompressStream request) => new MemoryStream("foo".ToUtf8Bytes()); 
    public object Any(CompressFile request) => new HttpResult(VirtualFileSources.GetFile("/foo"));

    public object Any(CompressAnyHttpResult request)
    {
        return new HttpResult(new CompressExamplesResponse());    // DTO
        return new HttpResult("foo", "text/plain");               // string
        return new HttpResult("foo".ToUtf8Bytes(), "text/plain"); // bytes
        //etc
    }
}

Static File Compression​

ServiceStack can also be configured to compress static files with specific file extensions that are larger than specific size with the new opt-in Config options below:

SetConfig(new HostConfig {
    CompressFilesWithExtensions = { "js", "css" },
    // (optional), only compress .js or .css files > 10k
    CompressFilesLargerThanBytes = 10 * 1024 
});

When more fine-grained logic is needed you can override ShouldCompressFile() in your AppHost to choose which static files you want to compress on a per-file basis, e.g:

public override bool ShouldCompressFile(IVirtualFile file)
{
    return base.ShouldCompressFile(file) || file.Name == "large.csv";
}

When to enable Static File Compression​

It's more optimal to configure static file compression on the native Web Server that's hosting your ServiceStack App than in managed code. You can use Fiddler to check if your Web Server (e.g. IIS) is already compressing static files in which case you won't want to configure ServiceStack to do it.

No compression is added when running ServiceStack in a self-host, which will benefit from enabling Static File Compression.

Brotli Compression​

.NET 6 Apps have access to is .NET Core's BrotliStream which is fully supported throughout ServiceStack, e.g. in Cached & Compressed Responses as well as sending compressed Request payloads in Service Clients.

The Brotli implementation is encapsulated within ServiceStack's compression abstractions whose implementations are contained within:

• BrotliCompressor - Brotli (br)
• DeflateCompressor - Deflate (deflate)
• GZipCompressor - GZIP (gzip)

Which all implement the same substitutable interface:

public interface IStreamCompressor
{
    string Encoding { get; }
    
    byte[] Compress(string text, Encoding? encoding = null);
    byte[] Compress(byte[] bytes);
    Stream Compress(Stream outputStream, bool leaveOpen=false);

    string Decompress(byte[] zipBuffer, Encoding? encoding = null);
        
    Stream Decompress(Stream zipBuffer, bool leaveOpen=false);

    byte[] DecompressBytes(byte[] zipBuffer);
}

That are managed with StreamCompressors in the ServiceStack.Client package:

public static class StreamCompressors
{
    // Is there a compressor registered with this encoding?   
    public static bool SupportsEncoding(string? encoding);

    // return the registered IStreamCompressor implementation for for this
    public static IStreamCompressor? Get(string? encoding);
    
    // Assert there exists a IStreamCompressor for this encoding
    public static IStreamCompressor GetRequired(string encoding);

    // Register a new compressor for a specific encoding (defaults: gzip, deflate, br*) .NET6+
    public static void Set(string encoding, IStreamCompressor compressor);

    // Remove compression support for this encoding
    public static bool Remove(string encoding);
}

Containing pre-registered implementations of all popular Brotli, Deflate & gzip HTTP Compression algorithms so there's typically no need to add any yourself.

The preferred compression implementation for a request can be retrieved with IRequest.GetCompressor() which determines the implementation to use based on the overridable GetCompressionType(IRequest request) method in your AppHost.

Brotli disabled for Firefox​

Brotli is currently not returned for Firefox browsers (by UserAgent detection in AppHost.GetCompressionType()) which for a yet to be determined reason is the only modern browser that doesn't support .NET's BrotliStream output. We'll continue to investigate and remove the restriction when resolved.