My General Thoughts On Web Performance
đź‘‹ Hello!
I love web performance. It is a mixture of the kinds of challenges I love. My first blog on this site describes my initial enthusiasm in 2023 that got me started. This website is statically generated with Hugo for performance and uses a provider called Netlify for hosting. It works pretty fast! It is also pretty spartan because I like it that way sometimes.
About getting started…
If you have never run a web performance test before, I recommend to start with Yellow Lab Tools - https://yellowlab.tools/. From entering a URL you will quickly get a graded score from running a test that gives a lot of useful information.
Have you tried running tests before on websites locally? Consider checking out a local Lighthouse test run for a start:
Ideally you should be using several tools to gain a bigger picture. Local “lab” tests have limitations. I reccomend entering a website URL into a more advanced test that includes some field data if available, but also good summaries of information of lab tests:
- WebPageTest - https://www.webpagetest.org/
- Go with the default options offered for either desktop or mobile, or customize with many options!
There are lots of resources out there, but first you should run some tests and get your curiosity flowing!
Real User Measurement (RUM) Data
The following test will give real user data if your website is included in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX):
If it is, you might want to take a look, as this is RUM data.
Blog post: my Quest for Small RUM data
It is possible to get Real User Monitoring (RUM) from multiple providers. I have tried three different services before as a trial user:
- SpeedCurve by SpeedCurve
- RUMvision by RUMvision
- mPulse by Akamai
All are excellent, just have different optimal use cases.