Received 28.01.2026, Revised 21.05.2026, Accepted 25.06.2026 Published 03.08.2026

Data compression algorithms in modern web technologies: An analysis of Gzip, Brotli and Zstandard methods for optimising content delivery

Dmytro Lutsak*

dmytrolutsak@outlook.com



The study aimed to provide a theoretical justification for and a comparative evaluation of the lossless compression algorithms Gzip, Brotli and Zstandard in modern web technologies for optimising content delivery. The methodological framework encompassed a theoretical generalisation of the principles of lossless compression, an analysis of technical specifications and software implementations, the construction of a comparative matrix, structural and functional modelling of the web pipeline, and a formalised assessment of the algorithms’ suitability for different types of web resources. As a result, the study established that the efficiency of web content compression was determined not only by the properties of a specific algorithm, but also by the structure of the resource, the level of data redundancy, the response formation mode under the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, content encoding support, CPU overhead, memory requirements, and the capabilities of the client-server infrastructure. The study demonstrated that Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) are suitable for lossless compression due to the repetitiveness of syntactic constructs, service characters, tags, selectors, code fragments, keys and nested structures. A comparative analysis identified the functional profiles of the algorithms: Gzip – a basic, compatible solution for static and dynamic responses over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol; Brotli – an option for pre-compressed static text resources; Zstandard – a solution for high-speed, streaming and scalable scenarios, provided there is infrastructure support. The structural-functional model of the web compression pipeline were used for the selection of a method to be presented as a sequence of technical decisions: “resource type → generation mode → structural repeatability → encoding support → latency and resource requirements → algorithm selection → transmission of the compressed stream → clientside decompression”. The practical significance of the results lies in the ability of web developers, system architects and performance optimisation specialists to use the proposed scheme to select Gzip, Brotli or Zstandard according to the resource type, compression mode and capabilities of the web infrastructure

compression; entropy coding; resource type; encoding support; algorithm selection
178-190
Lutsak, D. (2026). Data compression algorithms in modern web technologies: An analysis of Gzip, Brotli and Zstandard methods for optimising content delivery. Information Technologies and Computer Engineering, 23(2), 178-190. https://doi.org/10.31649/vitce/2.2026.178

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