Brotli-11 vs gzip-6: 22% smaller, but check the CPU bill

Brotli-11 vs gzip-6: 22% smaller, but check the CPU bill
Compression ratio and compression latency trade against each other on dynamic content.
— Static JS bundle: gzip-6 = 142KB, brotli-11 = 111KB. 22% less over the wire, ~90ms faster on slow links.
— But brotli-11 on DYNAMIC HTML added 35ms of server CPU per request — worse TTFB under load.
— Fix: brotli-11 precompressed for static assets (compress once at build), brotli-4 for dynamic HTML (fast enough, still beats gzip).
— Net: static transfer -22%, dynamic TTFB +0ms.
Max compression is free for static files and expensive for dynamic ones. Tier your compression level by asset type.
Takeaway: 111KB static via brotli-11, zero TTFB penalty on dynamic.