Unleashing the Speed: Gatsby vs. WordPress Lighthouse Scores Unraveled
In the quest for optimum website performance, the debate between using Gatsby or WordPress is a topic of heated discussion. As more businesses realize the importance of fast load times for SEO and user experience, the question, "Gatsby vs. WordPress Lighthouse scores - which comes out on top?" becomes increasingly critical.
We're putting Gatsby and WordPress to the test using Google's Lighthouse, and by the end, we’ll have declared a winner.
The Contestants: Gatsby and WordPress
Before we dive in, let’s understand our contestants.
Gatsby is a modern site generator that builds your site as “static” files which means it can be easily deployed on numerous services. It leverages powerful pre-configuration to build a website that uses only static files for incredibly fast page loads, service workers, code splitting, server-side rendering, intelligent image loading, asset optimization, and data prefetching.
On the other hand, WordPress is a tool that allows you to host and create websites effortlessly. It has a plugin architecture and a template system that allows you to personalize your website to suit your business, blog, portfolio, or online store.
The Importance of Google's Lighthouse Scores
Google's Lighthouse is more than just a performance-measuring tool. Instead, it's a comprehensive audit system that analyzes various webpage aspects, including performance, accessibility, SEO, and adherence to best practices.
Lighthouse measures metrics like First Contentful Paint (FCP), which indicates the time the first text or image is painted, and Time to Interactive (TTI), which measures the time until a page is fully interactive.
Understanding these metrics and optimizing for them is crucial for any website aiming for high visibility and user engagement. That's why our comparison of Gatsby vs. WordPress page speeds isn't complete without considering Lighthouse scores.
Performance
This is the most critical aspect of Lighthouse. Performance metrics are designed to understand how quickly a user can interact with your page.
The metrics include:
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Speed Index (SI)
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Time to Interactive (TTI)
Total Blocking Time (TBT)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
These metrics assess how quickly content is visually displayed, how quickly a page becomes interactive, and how visually stable it is as it loads. These are crucial because a fast, responsive site significantly improves user experience and engagement.
How They Compare
In terms of raw performance, Gatsby tends to have the edge. This is because Gatsby sites are built using React and GraphQL, and the site's pages are pre-rendered at build time, resulting in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
When a user visits a Gatsby site, they are essentially downloading static files, which is significantly faster than a WordPress site that has to make database calls and render the page dynamically each time.
Accessibility
Accessibility is the process of creating products, devices, services, or environments that are designed specifically for people with disabilities. For example, an accessible website ensures all users can access and understand web content regardless of physical or mental ability. This includes considerations like alt text for images (for visually impaired users), labels on forms (for screen readers), and color contrast (for visibility).
How They Compare
While both Gatsby and WordPress can produce sites with excellent accessibility, Gatsby's focus on modern web standards and best practices can provide a slight edge. In addition, it includes several built-in features and plugins that help meet accessibility standards.
Remember: a site's accessibility also heavily depends on the quality of the code written.
Best Practices
This category includes checks to ensure you're following best practices for the web. It covers everything from ensuring your website is served over HTTPS to not using outdated APIs. Best practices aim to improve your site's overall quality and avoid potential pitfalls.
How They Compare
Both Gatsby and WordPress follow web development best practices, but Gatsby's modern technology stack and focus on performance often result in better scores in this Lighthouse category. Built-in features like code splitting, prefetching resources, and lazy-loading images lead to more efficient loading and interaction.
SEO
The SEO category checks whether your page is optimized to be found by search engines. This includes checks for successful HTTP status code, the presence of a meta description, whether your page is mobile-friendly, and whether you're using legible font sizes. SEO is vital as it affects the online visibility of a website in a web search engine's unpaid results.
How They Compare
Gatsby's static nature leads to faster load times, a significant factor in SEO rankings. Gatsby also has several SEO plugins that can make optimizing your site easier. WordPress, with plugins like Yoast SEO, also offers robust SEO capabilities. Page speed is critical in SEO, giving Gatsby an edge in the Gatsby vs. WordPress Lighthouse scores debate.
Progressive Web App
A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s intended to work on any platform using a standards-compliant browser, including desktop and mobile devices.
How They Compare
Gatsby is designed to support PWA features out of the box by its nature as a static site generator. It includes built-in service workers, a key component of PWAs, which allows for features such as offline functionality and fast page loading. This means that Gatsby sites can be designed to work even when the user's internet connection is unreliable or non-existent - a significant advantage for user experience. In addition, Gatsby's performance optimizations also contribute to a more app-like feel, with rapid loading and smooth transitions between pages.
WordPress, on the other hand, does not natively support PWA features. While adding PWA functionality to a WordPress site is possible, this typically requires additional plugins and can involve a more complex setup process. The performance of WordPress sites can also be less consistent, depending on factors such as the quality of the plugins used, the hosting environment, and the overall configuration of the site. This can make achieving a truly app-like experience with a WordPress site more challenging.
If PWA features are a priority for your website, Gatsby offers clear advantages. Its built-in support for service workers, performance optimizations, and static site architecture make it a strong choice for creating sites that are not only fast and SEO-friendly but also capable of delivering an app-like user experience.
The Chart
Everything looks better when visually explained.
Please note that the "winner" in each category can greatly depend on the specific configuration and optimization of each site:
Ultimate Reasons For The Score:
Performance: Gatsby typically outperforms WordPress due to its static site generation and better optimization for performance.
Accessibility: Both platforms can achieve high accessibility scores, but this largely depends on how the site is built and the themes/plugins used.
Best Practices: Gatsby's modern architecture and reduced reliance on plugins generally lead to better adherence to web development best practices.
SEO: Both platforms can effectively optimize for SEO, but Gatsby's faster load times and improved performance can give it an edge in terms of technical SEO.
Progressive Web App (PWA): If PWA features are important to you, Gatsby's architecture already includes them, making it a superior option.
Why Page Speed Matters for SEO and User Experience
We talk a lot about page speeds and why they’re essential, but why? Why does Google care?
Well, page speed plays a critical role in both SEO and user experience. Search engines prioritize providing users with the most relevant and high-quality results from an SEO standpoint. A slow-loading website may give the impression of a subpar user experience, which can affect your rankings.
From a user perspective, page speed is equally crucial. In an era where users expect near-instantaneous responses, a delay of even a few seconds can lead to decreased conversions and increased bounce rates. As such, the faster load times typically associated with Gatsby can be a significant advantage.
Who Wins?
In the Gatsby vs. WordPress Lighthouse scores showdown, both have their strengths, but Gatsby tends to have an edge, particularly when it comes to raw performance.
WordPress's ease of use and extensive plugin system makes it a robust CMS for many users. However, if page speed is a priority for you, Gatsby's static site generation often results in faster load times, which can be crucial for SEO and user experience. Remember, the right choice depends on your specific needs and context.
Looking to maximize your Google Lighthouse scores? Reach out to us! Lighthouse sends fireworks all the time when we analyze the scores, and if you’ve never seen them, don’t wait another second before contacting us.
