🌊

HTTP Streaming: Chunked Transfer & Response Streaming

Simple

Free preview · 2 of 5 steps

HTTP streaming: sending data before it's complete

Standard HTTP requires a Content-Length header — the server must know the full response size before sending the first byte. HTTP chunked transfer encoding removes this requirement: the server sends data in chunks as it becomes available, with a 0 chunk signaling the end.

Streaming is used for: generating large responses incrementally, real-time feeds, LLM token streaming, and server-side rendering with data fetching. The challenge: proxies and CDNs often buffer responses by default.

Packets in motion — click to inspect:

1 / 2

Space to play/pause · ← → to step