Is it better to enable compression from Apach web server, or from Jira/Confluence?

[Ahmad Awadallah]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Compressing an HTTP Response within Confluence

Hi,

I know there is a performance hit if we have compression enabled on Jira/Confluence and on Apache web server.  So the question is which one is better?  Is it better to enabled compression on Apache Web server (and therefore have compression on Jira/Confluene disabled), or the other way around (ie enabled compression on JIRA/Confluence and disable it on Apach Web serer)?

Thank you.

[Jeff Louwerse]

in our case we disable compression on the Atlassian applications and open up a different port on the apache server for compression.  This way users can choose which one they want to use. 

We found that the internal corporate network was fast enough that using compression actually slowed down response time while users working remotely over a VPN and/or  slower networks saw major improvements using compression.

[Radu Dumitriu]

Do the compression at the apache level. Don't put too much on confluence, it's still java. Separate the machines in case you host them on the same host. Ensure the link between them is fast.

But: is the network usage so high ?  Is this really required?