Nginx gzip compression with large responses may exhaust buffers causing CPU spike
warningperformanceUpdated Mar 24, 2026
How to detect:
When nginx gzip compression is enabled with large client_max_body_size (20M), compressing large responses may exhaust buffers and cache, potentially causing CPU spikes in upstream Gunicorn workers.
Recommended action:
Test by disabling gzip compression in nginx config temporarily to see if CPU spikes resolve. If confirmed, tune gzip buffer settings or reduce gzip_min_length, or selectively disable gzip for large responses. Review actual response sizes being served on affected pages.