Visually configure Cache-Control/ETag/Expires cache policies, generate server config code
Zero Dependencies · Works OfflineThe HTTP Cache Header Generator is a free online developer tool that helps you visually configure HTTP caching policies. Through an intuitive interface, select Cache-Control directives, validation methods, and cache durations to automatically generate complete HTTP response headers and multi-server configuration code (Nginx/Apache/Node.js/Caddy). Built-in presets for static assets, HTML, API, and more. Real-time policy evaluation. All processing runs locally in your browser—no data is ever uploaded.
1. Select a preset policy (e.g., "Static Assets") or manually check Cache-Control directives.
2. Set max-age cache duration and validation method (ETag/Last-Modified).
3. Choose resource type and review cache policy evaluation and HTTP response headers.
4. Switch server tabs to copy the corresponding configuration code.
Frontend engineers configure long-term caching + filename hashing for CSS/JS/images to reduce repeated requests and improve page load speed.
Backend developers set appropriate cache policies for API endpoints, balancing data freshness and server load.
Ops engineers configure CDN caching policies using s-maxage to control edge node cache duration.
HTTP caching is a core web performance optimization technology. Browser caching is divided into strong caching (Expires/max-age) and conditional caching (ETag/Last-Modified). During strong cache periods, browsers use local copies without requests; conditional caching requires server validation (304 Not Modified). Cache-Control is the HTTP/1.1 standard with higher priority than HTTP/1.0 Expires. The immutable directive tells browsers the content won't change, eliminating revalidation—especially useful for filenames containing hashes. The Vary header specifies which request headers affect the cache key, commonly Vary: Accept-Encoding for gzip/brotli variants.
HTTP cache headers are response fields controlling how browsers and CDNs cache resources. Common ones: Cache-Control, ETag, Last-Modified, Expires.
max-age (duration), no-cache (must validate), no-store (no caching), public/private (scope), must-revalidate, immutable.
ETag is content-based (hash), precisely detecting changes. Last-Modified is time-based with second precision. ETag is more accurate but slightly costlier.
Static assets: long cache + immutable; HTML: no-cache for validation; API: max-age or no-store based on update frequency.
no-cache allows caching but requires validation before use (304). no-store completely prohibits caching, always fetching fresh content.
No. All configuration and code generation runs locally in your browser.