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Network & Web Tools

Cache-Control Header Analyzer Online Free

Analyze response caching directives and understand how browsers, proxies and CDNs may store and reuse content.

Analyze caching policy

Paste response caching headers to understand browser and shared-cache behaviour.

Grade

A

Score

100/100

Directives

4

public

Enabled

max-age

3600

s-maxage

86400

stale-while-revalidate

60

Warnings

  • No major conflicts detected.

Suggestions

  • Policy is explicit and internally consistent.

About this tool

HTTP caching improves performance and reduces server load, but conflicting or unclear directives can cause stale content or unnecessary requests. This browser-only analyzer explains the policy and flags common problems.

Common use cases

  • Review static asset caching before deployment.
  • Compare browser and CDN cache lifetimes.
  • Find conflicting public, private or no-store directives.
  • Check whether immutable or revalidation directives fit a policy.

How to use it

  1. Paste the Cache-Control header value.
  2. Optionally add an Expires header.
  3. Review directives, score and warnings.
  4. Adjust your server or CDN configuration and test again.

Important interpretation notes

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Frequently asked questions

What does max-age control?

max-age defines how many seconds a response may remain fresh in a browser cache before revalidation is needed.

What is s-maxage?

s-maxage defines freshness for shared caches such as CDNs and generally overrides max-age for those caches.

Is no-cache the same as no-store?

No. no-cache permits storage but requires validation before reuse, while no-store tells caches not to store the response.

Should every response be cached?

No. Personal, sensitive and rapidly changing responses may require private, no-cache or no-store policies.