diff --git a/quickwit/Cargo.lock b/quickwit/Cargo.lock
index d289332f6be..b8c48cd0db1 100644
--- a/quickwit/Cargo.lock
+++ b/quickwit/Cargo.lock
@@ -6285,6 +6285,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "bytes",
  "bytesize",
  "elasticsearch-dsl",
+ "flate2",
  "futures",
  "futures-util",
  "hex",
@@ -6339,6 +6340,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "tracing-opentelemetry",
  "utoipa",
  "warp",
+ "zstd 0.13.0",
 ]
 
 [[package]]
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/Cargo.toml b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/Cargo.toml
index 744fc648340..b59e73c3172 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/Cargo.toml
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/Cargo.toml
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ base64 = { workspace = true }
 bytes = { workspace = true }
 bytesize = { workspace = true }
 elasticsearch-dsl = "0.4.15"
+flate2 = { workspace = true }
 futures = { workspace = true }
 futures-util = { workspace = true }
 hex = { workspace = true }
@@ -46,6 +47,7 @@ tracing = { workspace = true }
 tracing-opentelemetry = { workspace = true }
 utoipa = { workspace = true }
 warp = { workspace = true }
+zstd = { workspace = true }
 
 quickwit-actors = { workspace = true }
 quickwit-cluster = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/decompression.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/decompression.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a77fc2c3b7f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/decompression.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+// Copyright (C) 2024 Quickwit, Inc.
+//
+// Quickwit is offered under the AGPL v3.0 and as commercial software.
+// For commercial licensing, contact us at hello@quickwit.io.
+//
+// AGPL:
+// This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+// it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
+// published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
+// License, or (at your option) any later version.
+//
+// This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+// GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
+//
+// You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+// along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+use core::fmt;
+use std::io::Read;
+
+use bytes::Bytes;
+use flate2::read::GzDecoder;
+use tokio::task;
+use warp::reject::Reject;
+use warp::Filter;
+
+/// There are two ways to decompress the body:
+/// - Stream the body through an async decompressor
+/// - Fetch the body and then decompress the bytes
+///
+/// The first approach lowers the latency, while the second approach is more CPU efficient.
+/// Ingesting data is usually CPU bound and there is considerable latency until the data is
+/// searchable, so the second approach is more suitable for this use case.
+async fn decompress_body(encoding: Option<String>, body: Bytes) -> Result<Bytes, warp::Rejection> {
+    match encoding.as_deref() {
+        Some("gzip" | "x-gzip") => {
+            let decompressed = task::spawn_blocking(move || {
+                let mut decompressed = Vec::new();
+                let mut decoder = GzDecoder::new(body.as_ref());
+                decoder
+                    .read_to_end(&mut decompressed)
+                    .map_err(|_| warp::reject())?;
+                Result::<_, warp::Rejection>::Ok(Bytes::from(decompressed))
+            })
+            .await
+            .map_err(|_| warp::reject())??;
+            Ok(decompressed)
+        }
+        Some("zstd") => {
+            let decompressed = task::spawn_blocking(move || {
+                zstd::decode_all(body.as_ref())
+                    .map(Bytes::from)
+                    .map_err(|_| warp::reject())
+            })
+            .await
+            .map_err(|_| warp::reject())??;
+            Ok(decompressed)
+        }
+        Some(encoding) => Err(warp::reject::custom(UnsupportedEncoding(
+            encoding.to_string(),
+        ))),
+        _ => Ok(body),
+    }
+}
+
+#[derive(Debug)]
+struct UnsupportedEncoding(String);
+
+impl fmt::Display for UnsupportedEncoding {
+    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter) -> fmt::Result {
+        write!(
+            f,
+            "Unsupported Content-Encoding {}. Supported encodings are 'gzip' and 'zstd'.",
+            self.0
+        )
+    }
+}
+
+impl Reject for UnsupportedEncoding {}
+
+/// Custom filter for optional decompression
+pub(crate) fn get_body_bytes() -> impl Filter<Extract = (Bytes,), Error = warp::Rejection> + Clone {
+    warp::header::optional("content-encoding")
+        .and(warp::body::bytes())
+        .and_then(|encoding: Option<String>, body: Bytes| async move {
+            decompress_body(encoding, body).await
+        })
+}
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/elasticsearch_api/filter.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/elasticsearch_api/filter.rs
index 4ea8e12e757..3825f97939f 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/elasticsearch_api/filter.rs
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/elasticsearch_api/filter.rs
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ use super::model::{
     CatIndexQueryParams, FieldCapabilityQueryParams, FieldCapabilityRequestBody,
     MultiSearchQueryParams, SearchQueryParamsCount,
 };
+use crate::decompression::get_body_bytes;
 use crate::elasticsearch_api::model::{
     ElasticBulkOptions, ScrollQueryParams, SearchBody, SearchQueryParams,
 };
@@ -76,7 +77,7 @@ pub(crate) fn elastic_bulk_filter(
         .and(warp::body::content_length_limit(
             CONTENT_LENGTH_LIMIT.as_u64(),
         ))
-        .and(warp::body::bytes())
+        .and(get_body_bytes())
         .and(serde_qs::warp::query(serde_qs::Config::default()))
 }
 
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/ingest_api/rest_handler.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/ingest_api/rest_handler.rs
index fa958abae4b..828b3556ba3 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/ingest_api/rest_handler.rs
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/ingest_api/rest_handler.rs
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ use serde::Deserialize;
 use thiserror::Error;
 use warp::{Filter, Rejection};
 
+use crate::decompression::get_body_bytes;
 use crate::format::extract_format_from_qs;
 use crate::rest_api_response::into_rest_api_response;
 use crate::{with_arg, BodyFormat};
@@ -80,7 +81,7 @@ fn ingest_filter(
         .and(warp::body::content_length_limit(
             config.content_length_limit.as_u64(),
         ))
-        .and(warp::body::bytes())
+        .and(get_body_bytes())
         .and(serde_qs::warp::query::<IngestOptions>(
             serde_qs::Config::default(),
         ))
@@ -104,7 +105,7 @@ fn ingest_v2_filter(
         .and(warp::body::content_length_limit(
             config.content_length_limit.as_u64(),
         ))
-        .and(warp::body::bytes())
+        .and(get_body_bytes())
         .and(serde_qs::warp::query::<IngestOptions>(
             serde_qs::Config::default(),
         ))
diff --git a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/lib.rs b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/lib.rs
index fa5c992121f..6e1bd75dcc1 100644
--- a/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/lib.rs
+++ b/quickwit/quickwit-serve/src/lib.rs
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 mod build_info;
 mod cluster_api;
 mod debugging_api;
+mod decompression;
 mod delete_task_api;
 mod elasticsearch_api;
 mod format;
diff --git a/quickwit/rest-api-tests/run_tests.py b/quickwit/rest-api-tests/run_tests.py
index 5b3fa39fab5..6fbf7f91d46 100755
--- a/quickwit/rest-api-tests/run_tests.py
+++ b/quickwit/rest-api-tests/run_tests.py
@@ -100,7 +100,10 @@ def run_request_step(method, step, previous_result):
     body_from_file = step.get("body_from_file", None)
     if body_from_file is not None:
         body_from_file = osp.join(step["cwd"], body_from_file)
-        kvargs["data"] = load_data(body_from_file)
+        kvargs["data"] = open(body_from_file, 'rb').read()
+        if body_from_file.endswith("gz"):
+            kvargs.setdefault("headers")["content-encoding"] = "gzip"
+
     kvargs = resolve_previous_result(kvargs, previous_result)
     ndjson = step.get("ndjson", None)
     if ndjson is not None: