Brotli Static

Install

Make sure you have the official nginx.org repository configured first. These packages require nginx from nginx.org, not the distro-bundled version.

Add the Blendbyte repository if you haven't already:

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://apt.blendbyte.net/nginx/blendbyte-archive-keyring.gpg \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/blendbyte.gpg >/dev/null

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/blendbyte.gpg] https://apt.blendbyte.net/nginx $(lsb_release -cs) main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/blendbyte.list

sudo apt update

Then install this module:

$ sudo apt install nginx-module-brotli-static

Most modules auto-enable on install. If yours didn't, enable it manually:

$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/modules-available/50-mod-brotli-static.conf \
  /etc/nginx/modules-enabled/
$ sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

What it does

Brotli static works alongside the dynamic Brotli module to serve pre-compressed files. When a request arrives with Accept-Encoding: br, nginx checks for a .br-suffixed version of the file on disk. If it finds one, it serves it directly. Zero CPU spent on compression at request time. Ideal for static assets that change infrequently: JS bundles, CSS, fonts, JSON manifests. Generate the .br files once in your build pipeline (brotli CLI, webpack plugin, Vite plugin) and deploy them alongside the originals. The dynamic brotli module covers anything without a pre-compressed version as a fallback.

When to use it

• Serve compressed JS bundles and CSS without runtime CPU overhead
• Reduce server resource usage on high-traffic static asset endpoints
• Combine with the dynamic brotli module for complete coverage
• Deploy pre-compressed files from CI/CD pipelines with no nginx config changes

Configuration

A starting-point configuration. Adjust to your setup.

location /static/ {
  root /var/www/html;
  brotli_static on;
  gzip_static   on;  # gzip fallback for older clients
}

# If you were using Sury, this upgrades in place:
sudo apt install nginx-module-brotli-static

Upstream project

This module is packaged from the upstream open-source project. Bug reports about module behaviour (not packaging) should go upstream.

https://github.com/google/ngx_brotli ↗