Connection Reuse

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Connection reuse means keeping a TCP connection open after the first request so you can send more requests without the overhead of a new handshake each time. It's like keeping the phone line open instead of hanging up and redialing for every sentence.

Real Talk

The practice of maintaining TCP connections for multiple HTTP request-response cycles instead of opening a new connection per request. HTTP/1.1 uses Keep-Alive headers for persistent connections, HTTP/2 multiplexes all requests over a single connection, and connection pooling in database drivers reuses database connections.

When You'll Hear This

"Connection reuse saves the 3-way TCP handshake and TLS negotiation on every request." / "Database connection pooling is connection reuse applied to database connections — essential for performance."