Cloudflare shared some data on Internet connections at scale, and the numbers are really interesting…
Half of all TCP connections consist of just 12 packets or fewer. The median response from Cloudflare servers is only 4.8 KB for HTTP/1.X and 6 KB for HTTP/2. Most web interactions are incredibly tiny.
But here’s where it gets interesting. While the median connection lasts just 4.7 seconds, some connections stay alive for days. The median connection sends 3.78 times more data than it receives, showing just how download-heavy the modern web is.
The distribution follows the classic ‘elephants and mice’ pattern. A small fraction of connections carry millions of packets (video streams, large downloads), while the vast majority remain lightweight (API calls, small web objects).
Most connections carry just one HTTP request, even with HTTP/2’s multiplexing capabilities. This holds true for both user-driven traffic and automated datacenter traffic.
The Internet is far more ‘bursty’ and transient than we might think.
Hope you found this interesting.