The Core Web Vitals technology report reveals that five out of the six most popular content management systems (CMS) saw a decline in performance as of April 2024, compared to the beginning of the year. Real-world performance data from HTTPArchive offers some insights into why these scores are trending downward.
Core Web Vitals Technology Report
The rankings for Core Web Vitals (CWV) combine real-world data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) with lab data from an HTTP Archive public dataset. This combined data is used to measure the mobile and desktop performance of a wide variety of content management systems, including metrics on JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and image weights.
The data featured in various articles is based on mobile measurements. The scores are percentages representing the portion of website visits that resulted in a good Core Web Vitals score.
“Core Web Vitals”
There may be different approaches to measure how well a website or group of websites performs with CWV. The approach used by this dashboard is designed to most closely match the CWV assessment in PageSpeed Insights.”
“HTTP Archive measures individual web pages, not entire websites. And due to capacity limitations, HTTP Archive is limited to testing one page per website. The most natural page to test for a given website is its home page, or the root page of the origin.”
Top Core Web Vitals Performance
The highest performing CMS among the six compared is Duda, a closed-source website builder platform used by agencies and developers for large client portfolios. 71% of website visits resulted in a good CWV score for Duda, which is 13 percentage points ahead of the second-place winner, Squarespace, another closed-source website builder.
Sites built with Duda consistently show higher CWV performance rates than any other CMS. Squarespace, Drupal, and Wix have similar performance scores, while Joomla and WordPress come in fifth and sixth, respectively.
WordPress Is Faster But Other Factors Slowing It Down
Although WordPress ranks sixth, its performance did not drop as significantly as other leading CMS, likely reflecting the numerous performance improvements in each new version. WordPress 6.5, released in early April 2024, featured over 100 performance improvements to both the backend and frontend.
WordPress’s performance score in April 2024 was slightly lower than at the beginning of the year, dropping less than one percentage point. In contrast, Duda, the top-ranked CMS, experienced a drop of 5.41 percentage points.
Chrome Lighthouse, an automated tool for measuring website performance, showed that 35% of WordPress sites had a good Lighthouse CWV score in January. This score dipped in February and March but rebounded to 35% in April, potentially reflecting the performance improvements in WordPress version 6.5.
Average Page Weight seems to be a factor in performance lag. Page Weight is the average number of bytes sent over the network, which can be compressed. WordPress sites’ average Page Weight increased from 568.48 in January to 579.92, an increase of 11.44.
The average download size of images increased by 49.5 Kilobytes from January to April 2024, likely due to how publishers use WordPress, rather than inherent changes in WordPress itself. These increases may account for the minimal performance change this year. Even so, a nearly flat performance is better than more significant drops seen in other CMS.
Top CWV Performance by CMS
The list below shows the percentage of sites using each CMS that achieved a good CWV score:
- Duda: 71%
- Squarespace: 58%
- Drupal: 54%
- Wix: 52%
- Joomla: 43%
- WordPress: 38%
Performance Drops by CMS
Comparing the performance drop by CMS reveals a trend where four out of six systems had relatively high drops in performance. Here are the performance drops by percentage points:
List by Performance Change
- Wix: -7.11
- Duda: -5.41
- Joomla: -2.84
- Drupal: -2.58
- WordPress: -0.71
WordPress had the smallest drop in performance, while Wix and Duda saw the highest drops. Squarespace uniquely showed an increase in performance, with a positive change of +3.92.
Interaction to Next Paint – INP
A likely reason for the performance changes is the introduction of Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as an official Core Web Vital, replacing First Input Delay (FID). FID measured the first input, whereas INP covers the entire user experience more comprehensively. INP became an official Core Web Vital in March 2024, which may explain some of the dips in CWV scores.
Core Web Vitals Scores – Takeaways
Duda leads in Core Web Vitals performance, outscoring all other content management systems in the comparison. Squarespace, Wix, and Drupal follow closely. Out of the six platforms, only Squarespace improved its scores this year.
All other platforms saw a decline in performance from the beginning of the year, potentially due to increased page weight, especially for images. However, there may be other unaccounted factors contributing to this trend.
The WordPress performance team has made significant improvements to the platform’s core, and the slight performance drop of less than one percent may reflect how publishers are utilizing it.
In conclusion, all the platforms in the comparison are progressing, with each showing steady improvements.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi
