diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 10ff3ae9..f9401b9d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,14 @@
 # 2018-08-17
 
+## Compression improvements
+
+Shifted Matrix Synapse compression from happening in the Matrix Synapse,
+to happening in the nginx proxy that's in front of it.
+
+Additionally, `riot-web` also gets compressed now (in the nginx proxy),
+which drops the initial page load's size from 5.31MB to 1.86MB.
+
+
 ## Disabling some unnecessary Synapse services
 
 The following services are not necessary, so they have been disabled:
diff --git a/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-riot-web.conf.j2 b/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-riot-web.conf.j2
index 43067514..3affc577 100644
--- a/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-riot-web.conf.j2
+++ b/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-riot-web.conf.j2
@@ -33,6 +33,9 @@ server {
 	server_tokens off;
 	root /dev/null;
 
+	gzip on;
+	gzip_types text/plain text/html application/json application/javascript text/css image/x-icon font/ttf image/gif;
+
 	ssl_certificate {{ matrix_ssl_certs_path }}/live/{{ hostname_riot }}/fullchain;
 	ssl_certificate_key {{ matrix_ssl_certs_path }}/live/{{ hostname_riot }}/privkey;
 	ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
diff --git a/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-synapse.conf.j2 b/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-synapse.conf.j2
index 706a41a5..f22eebcc 100644
--- a/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-synapse.conf.j2
+++ b/roles/matrix-server/templates/nginx-conf.d/matrix-synapse.conf.j2
@@ -33,6 +33,9 @@ server {
 	server_tokens off;
 	root /dev/null;
 
+	gzip on;
+	gzip_types text/plain text/html application/json;
+
 	ssl_certificate {{ matrix_ssl_certs_path }}/live/{{ hostname_matrix }}/fullchain;
 	ssl_certificate_key {{ matrix_ssl_certs_path }}/live/{{ hostname_matrix }}/privkey;
 	ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
diff --git a/roles/matrix-server/templates/synapse/homeserver.yaml.j2 b/roles/matrix-server/templates/synapse/homeserver.yaml.j2
index 106c8f16..6c77af18 100644
--- a/roles/matrix-server/templates/synapse/homeserver.yaml.j2
+++ b/roles/matrix-server/templates/synapse/homeserver.yaml.j2
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ listeners:
 
     resources:
       - names: [client]
-        compress: true
+        compress: false
 
   # Turn on the twisted ssh manhole service on localhost on the given
   # port.