HTTP/2 Checker

Is your site using HTTP/2?

HTTP/2 is the faster successor to HTTP/1.1, the protocol browsers use to fetch web pages. Its biggest improvement is multiplexing: many files (HTML, CSS, scripts, images) can travel over one connection at the same time instead of queuing. It also compresses headers and generally makes sites feel quicker, especially pages with many small files.

Enter a URL and this checker tells you whether the server negotiates HTTP/2. Most modern hosts and CDNs enable it by default, but older servers, some shared hosting plans and misconfigured proxies still serve only HTTP/1.1.

In practice, browsers only use HTTP/2 over HTTPS, so a working SSL certificate is a prerequisite.

How to use the http/2 checker

1. Enter the website URL.
2. Submit the check.
3. See whether HTTP/2 is enabled or disabled.
4. If it's disabled, look at your web server, hosting control panel or CDN settings.

Examples

A modern site

Input: mybotsy.com

Output: Supports HTTP/2

A large site

Input: wikipedia.org

Output: Supports HTTP/2

A plain HTTP site

Input: neverssl.com

Output: Doesn't support HTTP/2

Served over plain HTTP/1.1. Browsers only use HTTP/2 over HTTPS, so sites without HTTPS can't benefit.

Common uses

• Confirming your hosting or CDN supports HTTP/2 after a migration.
• Auditing site performance alongside Core Web Vitals.
• Comparing competitors' server setups.
• Checking that a reverse proxy or load balancer isn't downgrading connections.

Tips and things to know

• Putting a site behind a CDN such as Cloudflare is often the quickest way to get HTTP/2 (and HTTP/3) without touching the server.
• On Nginx, HTTP/2 is enabled in the server's listen or http2 directive; on Apache it needs the mod_http2 module.
• With HTTP/2, bundling every file into one huge file matters less than it used to, but minifying still helps. Try the CSS minifier and JS minifier.
• Check your certificate with the SSL lookup first if HTTP/2 isn't working.

Edge cases and limitations

• The check tests HTTP/2 only. A site that also offers HTTP/3 still shows as supporting HTTP/2.
• Enter the domain you actually serve. If example.com redirects to www.example.com, the two can be configured differently.
• A CDN such as Cloudflare usually provides HTTP/2 even when the origin server doesn't, so the result shows what visitors get, not your server's own settings.
• Firewalls that block automated requests can make a site look like it lacks HTTP/2.

Frequently asked questions

Does HTTP/2 improve SEO?

Not directly, but faster page loads improve user experience and Core Web Vitals, which do matter. Google's crawler can also crawl over HTTP/2.

Does HTTP/2 require HTTPS?

The standard allows unencrypted HTTP/2, but browsers only support it over TLS, so in practice yes.

What is HTTP/3?

HTTP/3 runs over QUIC instead of TCP and can be even faster on unreliable networks. Many CDNs offer it alongside HTTP/2.

How do I enable HTTP/2?

Turn it on in your web server, hosting panel or CDN. Most managed hosts and CDNs already have it on by default.

Related tools

• HTTP headers lookup: Get all the HTTP headers that an URL returns for a typical GET request.
• SSL Lookup: Get all possible details about an SSL certificate.
• URL redirect checker: Check for 301 & 302 redirects of a specific URL. It will check for up to 10 redirects.
• Website hosting checker: Get the web-host of a given website.
• HTML minifier: Minify your HTML by removing all the unnecessary characters.