People keep telling you that you need your WordPress site to load fast…but how do you actually figure out how quickly your site loads to know where it stands? Easy – use one of the WordPress speed test tools that I’m about to share in this post.
All of these tools make it simple to test your WordPress site’s performance – usually, it’s as easy as pasting in your site’s URL and letting the tool work its magic. Some also give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to testing different scenarios, such as different locations, devices, connection speeds, and more.
Below, I’ll share the six best WordPress speed test tools, as well as:
- Which tools are best for beginners, and which are best for more advanced users
- How the tools calculate your site’s load time (e.g. some test mobile performance, others desktop performance, etc.)
Let’s dig into the tools. Then, I’ll also share some best practices at the end.
Six best WordPress speed test tools for all types of users
1. WebPagetest
A good option for…people who want the flexibility to configure different test scenarios (device, location, connection speed, etc).
WebPagetest is the most advanced WordPress speed test tool on this list in terms of the depth of functionality and data it provides. It used to be a bit complicated to use, but a recent redesign makes it a lot easier for both casual and advanced users to get value from the tool.
WebPageTest provides information on a ton of metrics, including the new metrics in Google’s Core Web Vitals initiative.
Another great thing is that it lets you run up to nine tests at the same time and then analyze the median value, which can help you eliminate single-test variability.
When you set up a test with WebPagetest, you have two options for the configuration.
First, you can use the Simple Configuration option to choose from a few preset scenarios, such as mobile or desktop visitors in different locations and with different connection speeds:
If you want more flexibility, can open the Advanced Configuration area to:
- Select any test location – there’s at least one test server on every single continent
- Choose from 12 connection speeds or create your own
- Change how many tests to run – I like to run nine tests
- Choose which browser and device type to use
- Disable JavaScript
- …configure a whole lot more
Once you’re happy with the configuration, you just need to enter the URL that you want to test and click the Start Test button.
Once the test finishes, you’ll be presented with a ton of data. This includes lab data from the tests that you’ve run, as well as field data (data from real users) from the Chrome User Experience report if it’s available.
The top-line data that you see is the median result, but you can see all the results by scrolling down. You can also see more data by using the View drop-down at the top.
2. Google PageSpeed Insights
A good option for…people who want lots of recommendations and data straight from Google’s mouth.
In the past, Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool only gave you suggestions – it wouldn’t actually give you a number for how long your site took to load.
That’s changed, though. Now, Google will give you real page load times for a number of different metrics. If your site is popular enough to have data in the Chrome User Experience report, you’ll also be able to see real-user “field data” (this is the same data that’s available in WebPageTest).
Here’s what the “field data” looks like:
And here’s what the simulated lab data looks like:
You’ll note that you’re only able to see the First Input Delay metric in the field data. If you only see the lab data, you can use Total Blocking Time as a rough proxy for First Input Delay.
One important thing to note with the lab data is that Google will use your own physical location to test. For example, I live in Vietnam, so Google will use Vietnamese connection details for the test. As a result, I need to use a VPN if I want to see data for people in the United States. This is kind of an annoying quirk in the new PageSpeed Insights interface and a big part of why I prefer WebPageTest.
If you scroll down the results page, you’ll also get tons of diagnostics and suggestions to improve your site’s performance.
If you have a low PageSpeed Insights score alongside poor page load times, we wrote a whole post on how to improve your PageSpeed Insights score with things like caching plugins. But remember, your site’s actual page load times are what matter. And for that, your WordPress hosting is still going to play a big role (we tested it!).
3. Pingdom
A good option for…casual users and developers alike who want a simple way to test the desktop version of their site.
Pingdom is a really well-known WordPress speed test tool. It manages to do a great job of both:
- Making the results accessible to beginners
- Giving advanced users plenty of helpful data if they want it
To use it, you head to the Pingdom tools website and:
- Paste in your site’s URL
- Choose the location to run the test from
- Click Start Test
Then, Pingdom will start the tool (you might have to wait in line for a few minutes if lots of other people are trying to run tests).
If you’re a beginner, the Summary box gives you all the most important information, including your site’s:
- Load Time
- Performance grade
Below that, Pingdom will give you a list of what your site does well (or poorly). If you click the down arrow, you can see more specific information:
And further down, you can find information about the specific requests on your site, as well as a waterfall analysis.
This is really helpful for drilling down into your site’s performance – but it requires some advanced knowledge to benefit from. KeyCDN has a good explanation of it if you want to learn more.
The one downside of Pingdom is that it doesn’t give you a lot of flexibility for configuring the test. For example, you can’t choose different devices or connection speeds.
As a result, Pingdom can make your website look faster than it really is because Pingdom’s default configuration is to use a really fast unthrottled connection, even though most of your human visitors will have slower connections (especially if they’re using mobile data).
If you’re willing to pay, Pingdom also offers a really useful Real User Monitoring feature that lets you track how long your site takes to load for your actual human visitors. It costs $10 per month, but you can test it out with a 30-day free trial (no credit card required).
4. GTmetrix
A good option for…casual users and developers alike who want to test the desktop version of their site for Core Web Vitals.
Like Pingdom, GTmetrix is another tool that offers a good balance of beginner-friendliness with depth of data.
To use it, you just plug in your site’s URL and click Analyze. Then, it will spit back a detailed analysis of your site. The default configuration is to test from a desktop device in Vancouver, Canada with an unthrottled connection.
If you want more control over the test configuration, you can also register for a free account to adjust the connection speed and test from different locations. You need a paid account to test from a mobile device, though.
Nowadays, GTmetrix focuses specifically on the metrics in Google’s Core Web Vitals, so the main test data that you’ll see is your site’s Largest Contentful Paint time, as well as other metrics like Cumulative Layout Shift.
At the top, you get a nice summary like Pingdom, including:
- Core Web Vitals metrics
- Your site’s “GTmetrix grade” for performance and structure
And then below that, you can use the tabs to dig in with more detail. You’ll also get a nice Speed Visualization summary that lets you see how your site loads, with break downs for important metrics.
As with Pingdom, you can expand any of the suggestions to view more specific information:
GTmetrix also has a really useful waterfall analysis tool, which you can find in the Waterfall tab. The other tabs are also worth exploring:
5. Google Mobile Speed Test
A good option for…casual users who want to test the mobile version of their site.
Google’s free Mobile Speed Test tool offers a really easy way to test what your site’s experience will be like for mobile visitors.
All you do is plug in your site’s URL. Then, Google will tell you how long your site took to load using a mobile device and simulating a 4G connection.
By default, it will test from the USA, but you can choose different locations by clicking the drop-down arrow next to United States:
You can then click the Get My Free Report button for some personalized tips on how to speed up the mobile version of your site and make it more mobile-friendly.
It’s important to note that many of your visitors will be browsing on faster connections than 4G if they’re connected to Wifi, so your site will actually load faster for a lot of people.
6. Fast or Slow
A good option for…people who want to test the global performance of their site.
Fast or Slow is a free speed test tool from Wordfence (the popular WordPress security plugin) that offers a really easy way to assess your site’s global performance.
Whereas all the other speed test tools only test from one location at a time (even if they let you choose different locations), Fast or Slow automatically runs its tests from 18+ different global locations at the same time, including test locations on every single continent.
The idea is that you can quickly see how your site’s performance varies between different locations.
All you do is enter your URL and Fast or Slow will spit back a bunch of data, including a chart that shows performance for each location:
If you scroll down, you can see more specific details for each individual location:
Three things to pay attention to when using these WordPress speed test tools
To round things out, I want to cover three important factors to pay attention to when you run a WordPress speed test.
1. Your test location will affect your results
Where you run your test from will naturally have an effect on page load times. As a default, you should choose a test location that’s as close as possible to the bulk of your audience.
But it’s also a good idea to use different locations around the world to make sure your site loads fast for everyone. The easiest way to check this is to use the Fast or Slow tool above.
If you notice your site loads slowly from certain locations, you might want to look into a content delivery network (CDN).
2. Your connection speed will affect your results
As I mentioned above, the connection speed that you choose for your test will have a big effect on the load time results that you get.
Think about in the real world…
If you’re browsing from your smartphone on a crappy 3G connection, even fast sites will load slower than normal. If you go home and connect your smartphone to your super-fast wifi, those sites will magically start loading faster.
Nothing changed with the site itself – the only difference is the connection speed.
To get realistic results, I recommend playing around with different connection speeds.
3. “Load time” is not the same across all tools
Yeah…here’s the tricky thing. Because of how websites work, defining what “load time” means is actually a little complicated.
There are all kinds of terms like:
- Largest Contentful Paint
- First Contentful Paint
- DOM content loaded
- Onload time
- Fully loaded time
At a basic level, the differences are essentially whether a page is considered loaded when:
- The most “important” content is visible to the human visitor, even if other content hasn’t loaded yet
- All the content is visible to the human visitor, even if there’s still some background activity going on behind-the-scenes.
- Everything is 100% loaded and there’s no more background activity.
Make sure you’re comparing the same metric when talking about “load time”.
And that wraps up our post on the best WordPress speed test tools! Have any other questions about testing WordPress performance? Let us know in the comments!
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