diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index ba16a64427c..9b33a17d72b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,19 @@
 ## main / unreleased
 
+* [CHANGE] Disable gRPC compression in the querier and distributor for performance reasons [#4429](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/4429) (@carles-grafana)
+  If you would like to re-enable it, we recommend 'snappy'. Use the following settings:
+```
+ingester_client:
+    grpc_client_config:
+        grpc_compression: "snappy"
+metrics_generator_client:
+    grpc_client_config:
+        grpc_compression: "snappy"
+querier:
+    frontend_worker:
+        grpc_client_config:
+            grpc_compression: "snappy"
+```
 * [CHANGE] **BREAKING CHANGE** Add maximum spans per span set. Users can set `max_spans_per_span_set` to 0 to obtain the old behavior. [#4275](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/4383) (@carles-grafana)
 * [CHANGE] slo: include request cancellations within SLO [#4355] (https://github.com/grafana/tempo/pull/4355) (@electron0zero)
   request cancellations are exposed under `result` label in `tempo_query_frontend_queries_total` and `tempo_query_frontend_queries_within_slo_total` with `completed` or `canceled` values to differentiate between completed and canceled requests.
diff --git a/cmd/tempo/app/config.go b/cmd/tempo/app/config.go
index b0de9d276e9..2dc26d9ebbe 100644
--- a/cmd/tempo/app/config.go
+++ b/cmd/tempo/app/config.go
@@ -116,9 +116,9 @@ func (c *Config) RegisterFlagsAndApplyDefaults(prefix string, f *flag.FlagSet) {
 
 	// Everything else
 	flagext.DefaultValues(&c.IngesterClient)
-	c.IngesterClient.GRPCClientConfig.GRPCCompression = "snappy"
+	c.IngesterClient.GRPCClientConfig.GRPCCompression = ""
 	flagext.DefaultValues(&c.GeneratorClient)
-	c.GeneratorClient.GRPCClientConfig.GRPCCompression = "snappy"
+	c.GeneratorClient.GRPCClientConfig.GRPCCompression = ""
 	c.Overrides.RegisterFlagsAndApplyDefaults(f)
 
 	c.Distributor.RegisterFlagsAndApplyDefaults(util.PrefixConfig(prefix, "distributor"), f)
diff --git a/modules/querier/config.go b/modules/querier/config.go
index 824622cc3c2..e2b4149ba96 100644
--- a/modules/querier/config.go
+++ b/modules/querier/config.go
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ func (cfg *Config) RegisterFlagsAndApplyDefaults(prefix string, f *flag.FlagSet)
 		GRPCClientConfig: grpcclient.Config{
 			MaxRecvMsgSize:  100 << 20,
 			MaxSendMsgSize:  16 << 20,
-			GRPCCompression: "gzip",
+			GRPCCompression: "",
 			BackoffConfig: backoff.Config{ // the max possible backoff should be lesser than QueryTimeout, with room for actual query response time
 				MinBackoff: 100 * time.Millisecond,
 				MaxBackoff: 1 * time.Second,