diff --git a/.github/workflows/benchmark.yml b/.github/workflows/benchmark.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..560835da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/benchmark.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+name: Benchmark
+
+on:
+  pull_request:
+    types: [ labeled ]
+
+permissions:
+  issues: write
+  pull-requests: write
+
+jobs:
+  test:
+    if: github.event.label.name == 'benchmark'
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - uses: actions/setup-python@v2
+        with:
+          python-version: "3.9"
+
+      - id: benchmarks
+        name: Run Benchmarks
+        run: |
+          python -m pip install pyperf>=2.3.0
+          python extras/profiling/run.py --fresh --complex  --min-speed=6 --file output.txt
+          body=$(cat output.txt)
+          body="${body//'%'/'%25'}"
+          body="${body//$'\n'/'%0A'}"
+          body="${body//$'\r'/'%0D'}"
+          echo "::set-output name=body::$body"
+
+      - name: Find Comment
+        uses: peter-evans/find-comment@v1
+        id: fc
+        with:
+          issue-number: ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
+          comment-author: 'github-actions[bot]'
+          body-includes: '# Benchmarks'
+
+      - name: Create or update comment
+        uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-comment@v1
+        with:
+          comment-id: ${{ steps.fc.outputs.comment-id }}
+          issue-number: ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
+          body: |
+            # Benchmarks
+            ${{ steps.benchmarks.outputs.body }}
+          edit-mode: replace
+
+      - uses: actions-ecosystem/action-remove-labels@v1
+        with:
+          labels: benchmark
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 6b015ca6..2eeac05d 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -144,6 +144,20 @@ $ python -m pytest tests/test_uploads.py::TestMultipartFormDataFileUpload::test_
 
 See [Makefile](https://github.com/httpie/httpie/blob/master/Makefile) for additional development utilities.
 
+#### Running benchmarks
+
+If you are trying to work on speeding up HTTPie and want to verify your results, you
+can run the benchmark suite. The suite will compare the last commit of your branch
+with the master branch of your repository (or a fresh checkout of HTTPie master, through
+`--fresh`) and report the results back.
+
+```bash
+$ python extras/benchmarks/run.py
+```
+
+The benchmarks can also be run on the CI. Since it is a long process, it requires manual
+oversight. Ping one of the maintainers to get a `benchmark` label on your branch.
+
 #### Windows
 
 If you are on a Windows machine and not able to run `make`,
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2bcc2697..ed9ea9b9 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ pycodestyle: codestyle
 codestyle:
 	@echo $(H1)Running flake8$(H1END)
 	@[ -f $(VENV_BIN)/flake8 ] || $(VENV_PIP) install --upgrade --editable '.[dev]'
-	$(VENV_BIN)/flake8 httpie/ tests/ docs/packaging/brew/ *.py
+	$(VENV_BIN)/flake8 httpie/ tests/ extras/profiling/ docs/packaging/brew/ *.py
 	@echo
 
 
diff --git a/extras/profiling/benchmarks.py b/extras/profiling/benchmarks.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..50a53a5a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extras/profiling/benchmarks.py
@@ -0,0 +1,203 @@
+"""
+This file is the declaration of benchmarks for HTTPie. It
+is also used to run them with the current environment.
+
+Each instance of BaseRunner class will be an individual
+benchmark. And if run without any arguments, this file
+will execute every benchmark instance and report the
+timings.
+
+The benchmarks are run through 'pyperf', which allows to
+do get very precise results. For micro-benchmarks like startup,
+please run `pyperf system tune` to get even more acurrate results.
+
+Examples:
+
+    # Run everything as usual, the default is that we do 3 warmup runs
+    # and 5 actual runs.
+    $ python extras/profiling/benchmarks.py
+
+    # For retrieving results faster, pass --fast
+    $ python extras/profiling/benchmarks.py --fast
+
+    # For verify everything works as expected, pass --debug-single-value.
+    # It will only run everything once, so the resuls are not realiable. But
+    # very useful when iterating on a benchmark
+    $ python extras/profiling/benchmarks.py --debug-single-value
+
+    # If you want to run with a custom HTTPie command (for example with
+    # and HTTPie instance installed in another virtual environment),
+    # pass HTTPIE_COMMAND variable.
+    $ HTTPIE_COMMAND="/my/python /my/httpie" python extras/profiling/benchmarks.py
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import os
+import shlex
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import threading
+from contextlib import ExitStack, contextmanager
+from dataclasses import dataclass, field
+from functools import cached_property, partial
+from http.server import HTTPServer, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
+from tempfile import TemporaryDirectory
+from typing import ClassVar, Final, List
+
+import pyperf
+
+# For download benchmarks, define a set of files.
+# file: (block_size, count) => total_size = block_size * count
+PREDEFINED_FILES: Final = {'3G': (3 * 1024 ** 2, 1024)}
+
+
+class QuietSimpleHTTPServer(SimpleHTTPRequestHandler):
+    def log_message(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        pass
+
+
+@contextmanager
+def start_server():
+    """Create a server to serve local files. It will create the
+    PREDEFINED_FILES through dd."""
+    with TemporaryDirectory() as directory:
+        for file_name, (block_size, count) in PREDEFINED_FILES.items():
+            subprocess.check_call(
+                [
+                    'dd',
+                    'if=/dev/zero',
+                    f'of={file_name}',
+                    f'bs={block_size}',
+                    f'count={count}',
+                ],
+                cwd=directory,
+                stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL,
+                stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL,
+            )
+
+        handler = partial(QuietSimpleHTTPServer, directory=directory)
+        server = HTTPServer(('localhost', 0), handler)
+
+        thread = threading.Thread(target=server.serve_forever)
+        thread.start()
+        yield '{}:{}'.format(*server.socket.getsockname())
+        server.shutdown()
+        thread.join(timeout=0.5)
+
+
+@dataclass
+class Context:
+    benchmarks: ClassVar[List[BaseRunner]] = []
+    stack: ExitStack = field(default_factory=ExitStack)
+    runner: pyperf.Runner = field(default_factory=pyperf.Runner)
+
+    def run(self) -> pyperf.BenchmarkSuite:
+        results = [benchmark.run(self) for benchmark in self.benchmarks]
+        return pyperf.BenchmarkSuite(results)
+
+    @property
+    def cmd(self) -> List[str]:
+        if cmd := os.getenv('HTTPIE_COMMAND'):
+            return shlex.split(cmd)
+
+        http = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable), 'http')
+        assert os.path.exists(http)
+        return [sys.executable, http]
+
+    @cached_property
+    def server(self) -> str:
+        return self.stack.enter_context(start_server())
+
+    def __enter__(self):
+        return self
+
+    def __exit__(self, *exc_info):
+        self.stack.close()
+
+
+@dataclass
+class BaseRunner:
+    """
+    An individual benchmark case. By default it has the category
+    (e.g like startup or download) and a name.
+    """
+
+    category: str
+    title: str
+
+    def __post_init__(self):
+        Context.benchmarks.append(self)
+
+    def run(self, context: Context) -> pyperf.Benchmark:
+        raise NotImplementedError
+
+    @property
+    def name(self) -> str:
+        return f'{self.title} ({self.category})'
+
+
+@dataclass
+class CommandRunner(BaseRunner):
+    """
+    Run a single command, and benchmark it.
+    """
+
+    args: List[str]
+
+    def run(self, context: Context) -> pyperf.Benchmark:
+        return context.runner.bench_command(self.name, [*context.cmd, *self.args])
+
+
+@dataclass
+class DownloadRunner(BaseRunner):
+    """
+    Benchmark downloading a single file from the
+    remote server.
+    """
+
+    file_name: str
+
+    def run(self, context: Context) -> pyperf.Benchmark:
+        return context.runner.bench_command(
+            self.name,
+            [
+                *context.cmd,
+                '--download',
+                'GET',
+                f'{context.server}/{self.file_name}',
+            ],
+        )
+
+
+CommandRunner('startup', '`http --version`', ['--version'])
+CommandRunner('startup', '`http --offline pie.dev/get`', ['--offline', 'pie.dev/get'])
+for pretty in ['all', 'none']:
+    CommandRunner(
+        'startup',
+        f'`http --pretty={pretty} pie.dev/stream/1000`',
+        [
+            '--print=HBhb',
+            '--stream',
+            f'--pretty={pretty}',
+            'httpbin.org/stream/100'
+        ]
+    )
+DownloadRunner('download', '`http --download :/big_file.txt` (3GB)', '3G')
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    # PyPerf will bring it's own argument parser, so configure the script.
+    # The somewhat fast and also precise enough configuration is this. We run
+    # benchmarks 3 times to warmup (e.g especially for download benchmark, this
+    # is important). And then 5 actual runs where we record.
+    sys.argv.extend(
+        ['--worker', '--loops=1', '--warmup=3', '--values=5', '--processes=2']
+    )
+
+    with Context() as context:
+        context.run()
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    main()
diff --git a/extras/profiling/run.py b/extras/profiling/run.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..86913673
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extras/profiling/run.py
@@ -0,0 +1,287 @@
+"""
+Run the HTTPie benchmark suite with multiple environments.
+
+This script is configured in a way that, it will create
+two (or more) isolated environments and compare the *last
+commit* of this repository with it's master.
+
+> If you didn't commit yet, it won't be showing results.
+
+You can also pass --fresh, which would test the *last
+commit* of this repository with a fresh copy of HTTPie
+itself. This way even if you don't have an up-to-date
+master branch, you can still compare it with the upstream's
+master.
+
+You can also pass --complex to add 2 additional environments,
+which would include additional dependencies like pyOpenSSL.
+
+Examples:
+
+    # Run everything as usual, and compare last commit with master
+    $ python extras/benchmarks/run.py
+
+    # Include complex environments
+    $ python extras/benchmarks/run.py --complex
+
+    # Compare against a fresh copy
+    $ python extras/benchmarks/run.py --fresh
+
+    # Compare against a custom branch of a custom repo
+    $ python extras/benchmarks/run.py --target-repo my_repo --target-branch my_branch
+
+    # Debug changes made on this script (only run benchmarks once)
+    $ python extras/benchmarks/run.py --debug
+"""
+
+import dataclasses
+import shlex
+import subprocess
+import sys
+import tempfile
+import venv
+from argparse import ArgumentParser, FileType
+from contextlib import contextmanager
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from pathlib import Path
+from typing import (IO, Dict, Generator, Iterable, List, Optional,
+                    Tuple)
+
+BENCHMARK_SCRIPT = Path(__file__).parent / 'benchmarks.py'
+CURRENT_REPO = Path(__file__).parent.parent.parent
+
+GITHUB_URL = 'https://github.com/httpie/httpie.git'
+TARGET_BRANCH = 'master'
+
+# Additional dependencies for --complex
+ADDITIONAL_DEPS = ('pyOpenSSL',)
+
+
+def call(*args, **kwargs):
+    kwargs.setdefault('stdout', subprocess.DEVNULL)
+    return subprocess.check_call(*args, **kwargs)
+
+
+class Environment:
+    """
+    Each environment defines how to create an isolated instance
+    where we could install HTTPie and run benchmarks without any
+    environmental factors.
+    """
+
+    @contextmanager
+    def on_repo(self) -> Generator[Tuple[Path, Dict[str, str]], None, None]:
+        """
+        Return the path to the python interpreter and the
+        environment variables (e.g HTTPIE_COMMAND) to be
+        used on the benchmarks.
+        """
+        raise NotImplementedError
+
+
+@dataclass
+class HTTPieEnvironment(Environment):
+    repo_url: str
+    branch: Optional[str] = None
+    dependencies: Iterable[str] = ()
+
+    @contextmanager
+    def on_repo(self) -> Generator[Path, None, None]:
+        with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as directory_path:
+            directory = Path(directory_path)
+
+            # Clone the repo
+            repo_path = directory / 'httpie'
+            call(
+                ['git', 'clone', self.repo_url, repo_path],
+                stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL,
+            )
+
+            if self.branch is not None:
+                call(
+                    ['git', 'checkout', self.branch],
+                    cwd=repo_path,
+                    stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL,
+                )
+
+            # Prepare the environment
+            venv_path = directory / '.venv'
+            venv.create(venv_path, with_pip=True)
+
+            # Install basic dependencies
+            python = venv_path / 'bin' / 'python'
+            call(
+                [
+                    python,
+                    '-m',
+                    'pip',
+                    'install',
+                    'wheel',
+                    'pyperf==2.3.0',
+                    *self.dependencies,
+                ]
+            )
+
+            # Create a wheel distribution of HTTPie
+            call([python, 'setup.py', 'bdist_wheel'], cwd=repo_path)
+
+            # Install httpie
+            distribution_path = next((repo_path / 'dist').iterdir())
+            call(
+                [python, '-m', 'pip', 'install', distribution_path],
+                cwd=repo_path,
+            )
+
+            http = venv_path / 'bin' / 'http'
+            yield python, {'HTTPIE_COMMAND': shlex.join([str(python), str(http)])}
+
+
+@dataclass
+class LocalCommandEnvironment(Environment):
+    local_command: str
+
+    @contextmanager
+    def on_repo(self) -> Generator[Path, None, None]:
+        yield sys.executable, {'HTTPIE_COMMAND': self.local_command}
+
+
+def dump_results(
+    results: List[str],
+    file: IO[str],
+    min_speed: Optional[str] = None
+) -> None:
+    for result in results:
+        lines = result.strip().splitlines()
+        if min_speed is not None and "hidden" in lines[-1]:
+            lines[-1] = (
+                'Some benchmarks were hidden from this list '
+                'because their timings did not change in a '
+                'significant way (change was within the error '
+                'margin ±{margin}%).'
+            ).format(margin=min_speed)
+            result = '\n'.join(lines)
+
+        print(result, file=file)
+        print("\n---\n", file=file)
+
+
+def compare(*args, directory: Path, min_speed: Optional[str] = None):
+    compare_args = ['pyperf', 'compare_to', '--table', '--table-format=md', *args]
+    if min_speed:
+        compare_args.extend(['--min-speed', min_speed])
+    return subprocess.check_output(
+        compare_args,
+        cwd=directory,
+        text=True,
+    )
+
+
+def run(
+    configs: List[Dict[str, Environment]],
+    file: IO[str],
+    debug: bool = False,
+    min_speed: Optional[str] = None,
+) -> None:
+    result_directory = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp())
+    results = []
+
+    current = 1
+    total = sum(1 for config in configs for _ in config.items())
+
+    def iterate(env_name, status):
+        print(
+            f'Iteration: {env_name} ({current}/{total}) ({status})' + ' ' * 10,
+            end='\r',
+            flush=True,
+        )
+
+    for config in configs:
+        for env_name, env in config.items():
+            iterate(env_name, 'setting up')
+            with env.on_repo() as (python, env_vars):
+                iterate(env_name, 'running benchmarks')
+                args = [python, BENCHMARK_SCRIPT, '-o', env_name]
+                if debug:
+                    args.append('--debug-single-value')
+                call(
+                    args,
+                    cwd=result_directory,
+                    env=env_vars,
+                )
+            current += 1
+
+        results.append(compare(
+            *config.keys(),
+            directory=result_directory,
+            min_speed=min_speed
+        ))
+
+    dump_results(results, file=file, min_speed=min_speed)
+    print('Results are available at:', result_directory)
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    parser = ArgumentParser()
+    parser.add_argument('--local-repo', default=CURRENT_REPO)
+    parser.add_argument('--local-branch', default=None)
+    parser.add_argument('--target-repo', default=CURRENT_REPO)
+    parser.add_argument('--target-branch', default=TARGET_BRANCH)
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--fresh',
+        action='store_const',
+        const=GITHUB_URL,
+        dest='target_repo',
+        help='Clone the target repo from upstream GitHub URL',
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--complex',
+        action='store_true',
+        help='Add a second run, with a complex python environment.',
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--local-bin',
+        help='Run the suite with the given local binary in addition to'
+        ' existing runners. (E.g --local-bin $(command -v xh))',
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--file',
+        type=FileType('w'),
+        default=sys.stdout,
+        help='File to print the actual results',
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--min-speed',
+        help='Minimum of speed in percent to consider that a '
+             'benchmark is significant'
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--debug',
+        action='store_true',
+    )
+
+    options = parser.parse_args()
+
+    configs = []
+
+    base_config = {
+        options.target_branch: HTTPieEnvironment(options.target_repo, options.target_branch),
+        'this_branch': HTTPieEnvironment(options.local_repo, options.local_branch),
+    }
+    configs.append(base_config)
+
+    if options.complex:
+        complex_config = {
+            env_name
+            + '-complex': dataclasses.replace(env, dependencies=ADDITIONAL_DEPS)
+            for env_name, env in base_config.items()
+        }
+        configs.append(complex_config)
+
+    if options.local_bin:
+        base_config['binary'] = LocalCommandEnvironment(options.local_bin)
+
+    run(configs, file=options.file, debug=options.debug, min_speed=options.min_speed)
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    main()