HSTS

IETF, Fremont, California, United States

The HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) standard is a web security mechanism that ensures a user's browser always connects to a website using HTTPS, preventing insecure HTTP access.

It is enforced through the Strict-Transport-Security response header, which defines a policy duration, can apply to all subdomains, automatically upgrades HTTP requests to HTTPS, and protects against protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking.

According to our data, HSTS is the 4th most popular networking technology on the web.
It has 26.8% of the networking market share and is present on 24.7% of all websites.

Statistics based on 3.5M+ analyzed websites. About this data

📊 Rankings and Market Share

🏆 HSTS Awards

⚡ Sites Using HSTS

We have data on 870,766 websites that use HSTS networking technology. Here is a list of some of the top ranked ones.

The highest rated site using HSTS is google.com.

#WebsiteRankCountryLanguage
1 google.com #1 United States English
2 facebook.com #2 United States English
3 microsoft.com #3 United States American English
4 youtube.com #4 United States English
5 instagram.com #5 United States English
6 apple.com #8 United States American English
7 linkedin.com #9 United States English
8 wikipedia.org #11 United States English
9 x.com #12 English
10 github.com #13 United States English
11 bing.com #14 United States English
12 pinterest.com #15 English
13 yahoo.com #16 United States American English
14 bitly.com #17 American English
15 tiktok.com #18 Cayman Islands English
16 netflix.com #19 United States English
17 cloudflare.com #20 United States American English
18 telegram.org #21 United Kingdom English
19 spotify.com #22 Sweden English
20 vimeo.com #23 United States English

📈 Usage Statistics

Most of the sites that use HSTS:

Most of the sites using HSTS are from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

  • United States 24.3%
  • Germany 8.5%
  • United Kingdom 6.6%
  • France 4.5%
  • Netherlands 4.1%
  • Japan 2.9%
  • Australia 2.9%
  • Canada 2.7%
  • Russia 2.5%
  • Other 41%

Most HSTS users speak English, German, or French.

  • English 59.5%
  • German 7.4%
  • French 4.1%
  • Spanish 3.9%
  • Dutch 2.7%
  • Russian 2.6%
  • Chinese 2.4%
  • Japanese 2.3%
  • Portuguese 2.1%
  • Other 13%

HSTS networking technology is especially popular on .com and .org top-level domains.

  • .com 45.5%
  • .org 6.3%
  • .de 4.8%
  • .net 2.4%
  • .co.uk 2.3%
  • .nl 2.2%
  • .fr 1.6%
  • .ru 1.6%
  • .com.au 1.4%
  • Other 31.9%

The primary market segments for websites utilizing HSTS include business, online shopping, and education and reference.

  • Business 18.3%
  • Online Shopping 11.4%
  • Education/Reference 6.2%
  • Internet Services 5.1%
  • Blogs/Wiki 4.1%
  • Travel 3.5%
  • Health 3.3%
  • Entertainment 3.2%
  • Software/Hardware 3.1%
  • Other 41.8%

🕵️ Similar Technologies

These are some of the best HSTS alternatives.

RankName
1
TLS
Fremont, California, United States

A cryptographic protocol that provides end-to-end encryption of data transmitted over the Internet, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and authentication between communicating systems.
2
HTTP 2+
Fremont, California, United States

An application-layer protocol used to transfer resources such as HTML documents, images, and other web content, forming the foundation of data communication in web browsers.
3
Cookies
Fremont, California, United States

Small pieces of data that a website stores in a visitor's web browser to preserve information between page requests and browsing sessions.
5
♯ ETag
Fremont, California, United States

An identifier for a specific version of a resource that is used for cache validation.
6
CSP
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

The Content-Security-Policy HTTP response header and meta tag are used to control what resources a given page can load.

🆚 Compare Alternatives

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💬 Frequently Asked Questions

What is the company behind HSTS?

HSTS is owned by Internet Engineering Task Force, headquartered in Fremont, California, United States.

Which country uses HSTS the most?

The majority of HSTS users are from the United States.

Who uses HSTS?

According to our data, HSTS is used on thousands of sites, including google.com, facebook.com, and microsoft.com.

Is HSTS used on government websites?

In total, we found HSTS on 1,380 government sites in the United States.

Do academic institutions use HSTS?

Yes, quite a few! Overall, we know of 2,231 academic websites in the United States that use HSTS.

How does HSTS stack up against its competitors?

HSTS is one of the most popular networking technologies, second only to TLS, HTTP 2+, and Cookies.

What are the alternatives to HSTS?

Alternatives and possible competitors to HSTS may include TLS, HTTP 2+, and Cookies.

👉 See Also

🗃️ About This Data