I have a problem with a slow Apache server with SSL 256bit cert
ab -n 500 https://example.com/
Time per request 29 ms
ab -n 500 http://example.com/
Time per request 10 ms
52 Bytes is sent in both requests and the tests are done from a server in the same datacenter
conf
SSLEngine on
SSLProtocol All -SSLv2
SSLHonorCipherOrder On
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXP:!LOW:!RC2:!3DES:!SEED:!RC4:+HIGH:+MEDIUM
Is it normal that SSL is 3 times slower than plain HTTP requests?
SSLCipherSuite ALL
is very unlikely to slow anything. It might speed the handshake if the client offers unauthenticated suites, but those are usually blacklisted as insecure. What's your ping time client to server? SSL/TLS adds at least two roundtrips (sometimes more) on initial negotiation, and one on resumption. "Pipelining" or "pooling" (multiple requests on one connection) and/or resumption (multiple connections using the same handshake results) may be much faster.