Trello REST API Compression?
Asked by Rasmus Wulff Jensen:

Hi, I was wondering if there are any options to enable response data compression? I know there is various ways to reduce what data comes back, but due to the nature of the data, it would benefit hugely in payload size if compression was used (assuming the servers can compress the data fast enough)... Has this already been considered or hidden as an option somewhere?


Answers:
author: David Bakkers
body: Hello [@Rasmus Wulff Jensen](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5189508)

There are no secret parameters or hidden functions to turn on any sort of compression for any 'data' in Trello's REST API responses that I've ever heard of.

Given that the largest binary data object you can download from Trello's REST API would be an attachment, the largest size is 250Mb and is stored in an AWS S3 data centre with potentially massive bandwidth capacity, why would Atlassian bother?

IMHO, GETting files of that size stopped being a concern decades ago.

comments: author: Rasmus Wulff Jensen
body: I'm not talking about the attachments here, but instead the json payload returned from get requests (example Get All Cards of a board)... On a big board with example 2000 cards, that json can be up to 10mb big as raw JSON while zip-compressed is only 1 mb... So it is the frequent repeat reads of such data that would benefit from compression over infrequent attachment downloads


author: David Bakkers
body: I regularly get batches of 1,000 cards, with all the fields, from various Trello instances. With a decent connection to the internet, it takes less than 5 seconds. That's **5 WHOLE SECONDS** Rasmus for the largest query and pure JSON response scenario you are describing.

Personally, at those time scales, the whole topic of caring about the payload size becomes a moot point for me, but if you feel the need to press on, raise it as a feature request.

Have fun.


author: Rasmus Wulff Jensen
body: Why settle for 5 seconds when it with a "tiny" thing like a compression tweak it might take 2-3 seconds and a better user experience... And save Trello the egress... Only thing that would be against it would be if the API Server have too high memory or CPU usage to deal with the compressing of the data.


author: David Bakkers
body: I found [JRASERER-27378](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-27378) from a decade ago, where someone requested having the REST API of Jira Server support compressed responses. A total of 2 whole people in the world ever watched that issue and not a single other person said they were affected by it.

So, given that not a single other person on the planet was interested in Atlassian's primary, corporate level issue management platform having that functionality, and Atlassian closed the feature request due to lack of interest, what do you think the chances are Atlassian will expend the time, money and effort to add that functionality to the REST API of Trello, their basic, 'entry level' issue management platform?
> Only thing that would be against it would be if the API Server have too high memory or CPU usage to deal with the compressing of the data.

You probably have your answer right there. Increased CPU load incurs a measurable cost increase for Atlassian. Plus, there are sometimes issues with handling compressed data through proxies and gateways, plus the processing overhead of decompressing the data stream on the receiving end. The sums probably just don't add up for an environment like Trello and the user expectations.

Anyhow, enough of the tete-a-tete and me rationalising my opinions. You're welcome to keep beating your drum as loudly as you want :)