Spring gzip vs Tomcat gzip

Question

I would like to enable GZIP compression for my web application. I searched over the Internet and found 2 different options:

• Enable compression in embedded container like described in Spring docs (https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/howto-embedded-servlet-containers.html - latest section)
• Use GzipResourceResolver resolver like described here: http://kielczewski.eu/2014/11/static-resources-in-spring41/

Both options is okay for me but I want to understand the difference and which approach is better. Please assist.

In addition, what will happen if I enable both options? Will servlet container try to compress already compressed files?

p.s. In my opinion 2nd options will be faster as there no need to compress response each time - compressed files will be prepared during build phase.

Answer 1

If both compressions are enabled , compression would be done at both the layers. As per spring docs, there is an overhead at server in enabling spring gzip compression . If you have application deployed in container like tomcat, compression can be enabled there as well. But enabling compression at container like tomcat is better as it will be applicable for all the resources(Js, images etc) as compared to enabling gzip compression at spring which might be serving a part of resources. Also double compressing a gzip file would add to overhead and there wont be any significant compression achieved.