TLDR: Why gRPC Uses HTTP2
Date: 2025-09-24 Source: https://arpitbhayani.me/blogs/grpc-http2
Overview
When Google introduced gRPC in 2015, one of the most significant architectural decisions was building it on top of HTTP/2 rather than the widely adopted HTTP/1.1. This was just about following some trend, but a deliberate choice that fundamentally shapes how gRPC performs and behaves.
Key Points
- When Google introduced gRPC in 2015, one of the most significant architectural decisions was building it on top of HTTP/2 rather than the widely adopted HTTP/1.1.
- What Makes HTTP/2 Different: Before diving into gRPC’s specific needs, let’s understand what HTTP/2 brings to the table that HTTP/1.1 doesn’t.
- gRPC’s Core Requirements: Bidirectional Communication gRPC supports four types of RPC calls: HTTP/1.1 simply cannot handle streaming scenarios effectively.
- Performance: Connection Management Consider a microservices application with 10 services, each making an average of 5 calls to other services under load.