diff --git a/modules/caddyhttp/encode/accepted_encodings_bench_test.go b/modules/caddyhttp/encode/accepted_encodings_bench_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ff25c3136d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modules/caddyhttp/encode/accepted_encodings_bench_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+package encode
+
+import (
+	"net/http"
+	"net/http/httptest"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func BenchmarkAcceptedEncodings(b *testing.B) {
+	r := httptest.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, "/", nil)
+	r.Header.Set("Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate, br;q=0.9, zstd;q=0.8")
+	prefer := []string{"zstd", "br", "gzip"}
+	b.ReportAllocs()
+	for b.Loop() {
+		_ = AcceptedEncodings(r, prefer)
+	}
+}
diff --git a/modules/caddyhttp/encode/encode.go b/modules/caddyhttp/encode/encode.go
index 8a4ac2b2363..887c9fc7346 100644
--- a/modules/caddyhttp/encode/encode.go
+++ b/modules/caddyhttp/encode/encode.go
@@ -504,16 +504,17 @@ func AcceptedEncodings(r *http.Request, preferredOrder []string) []string {
 		return []string{}
 	}
 
-	prefs := []encodingPreference{}
+	prefs := make([]encodingPreference, 0, strings.Count(acceptEncHeader, ",")+1)
 
 	for accepted := range strings.SplitSeq(acceptEncHeader, ",") {
-		parts := strings.Split(accepted, ";")
-		encName := strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(parts[0]))
+		encName, params, found := strings.Cut(accepted, ";")
+		encName = strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(encName))
 
 		// determine q-factor
 		qFactor := 1.0
-		if len(parts) > 1 {
-			qFactorStr := strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(parts[1]))
+		if found {
+			qFactorStr, _, _ := strings.Cut(params, ";")
+			qFactorStr = strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(qFactorStr))
 			if strings.HasPrefix(qFactorStr, "q=") {
 				if qFactorFloat, err := strconv.ParseFloat(qFactorStr[2:], 32); err == nil {
 					if qFactorFloat >= 0 && qFactorFloat <= 1 {