HTTP: What is a cache?

In a nutshell

A cache is the local store of previous response messages and the system that manages its storage, retrieval, and deletion. Many components have to play well together for caching to work (e.g., web browser, origin server and the HTTP protocol).

Caches help reduce network response times and bandwidth consumption on future requests that are equivalent to previous requests.

Here’s how it works:

There are various HTTP headers that both user agents and origin servers can use to control caching behaviour.

Sources

• RFC 9111 HTTP Caching