Some of the best tools for website speed and performance are neither free nor paid. This article will give you a quick overview of the various methods for testing site speed, including some that may be freely available on the web.
Website speed optimization should always be your first priority. There are lots of reasons why your website is loading slowly, and one of them is your server response time. Measuring the average response time to the first byte will let you know if this is a problem in your current setup or if you might need to look into finding a CDN for help optimizing this particular issue.
Your website might not load fast enough because it contains code that blocks the rendering of the current webpage. This could be Javascript, CSS, or any other type of code that may block the rendering process for your website. You need to put your time and effort into ensuring that your company’s digital content is loading as quickly as possible.
We want your site to hit the ground running and be a success. These tools will help you test page load and improve website performance.
Sematext
Sematext Synthetics is an API and website monitoring tool with a simple design that has quickly found its spot among our users. It’s reliable and easy to use, with the ability to monitor API and website uptime from multiple locations across the globe, measure performance across devices and browsers, identify issues with third-party resources.
Get started quickly with the intuitive interface that monitors your resources and alerts you if something goes wrong. Adjust your settings to set up different conditions to trigger an alert when something happens.
Sematext Synthetics offers a 14-day free trial. Plans with different resources start from $29/month and let you create 40 HTTP and 5 browser monitors, with data retention of 30 days. You can also choose to go with the pay-as-you-go plan, which lets you set up individual monitors for only $2/month.
To start with Sematext
Pingdom Speed Test
Pingdom’s aging website speed test tool is another well-known website speed test that doesn’t require an account to use. It gives a less detailed report than Google PageSpeed Insights does, with grades from 0 to 100 and breakdowns of the codes that come with your response time and load times for files. You will be able to see exactly what content was responsible for the long load time.
With their free tool, you can run a single test from these locations and if you sign up for our service, starting at $10/month for 10 uptime checks, you can set up page speed monitoring as well as alerting.
Get started with Pingdom Speed Test
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a simple tool that provides helpful information on any website’s performance across mobile and desktop platforms. By evaluating the speed of your website, you can see which areas need the most improvement in order to rank higher in search results.
We can help with performance, like by finding and identifying those troublesome code snippets that are slowing down your website. With the most accurate reporting tools available, we aim to dramatically improve your site’s user experience and visitor retention.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool to get information regarding how fast your website is loading. It’s entirely free, doesn’t require any signs-up required, and some other tools in this list don’t include these features either.
To start with Google PageSpeed Insights
UpTrends
Uptrends offers a free desktop test, which will allow you to select one of ten locations and device types. You can also configure the test to run on one of four browsers: Chrome, Firefox, PhantomJS, and Internet Explorer. It also allows you to throttle bandwidth as well as a screen resolution.
With the free version, you may hear a little noise, but there are no alerts that can be set up. However, if you want all of those plus more, Uptrends also has a Synthetics product available for $12 a month for 10 basic monitors and 60 message credits.
To start with UpTrends
WebPage Test
WebPageTest.org makes it easy to test your website from one of its 40 locations and a wide range of devices, giving you valuable insights about how the site loads on different devices and networks. It even provides information on the performance of compression and caching mechanisms. You can simulate your tests over slow mobile networks or fast 4G networks, which will show you how they’ll perform under different conditions.
DNS or CDN can cause delay and server cannot respond to all requests. The SiteGlimpse test investigates this by testing your website 3 times in a row and displaying the results in an easy-to-read chart.
To start with WebPage Test
GTmetrix
If you want to improve your page speed and optimize for SEO, then GTmetrix can offer some great insights. It also provides the possible solutions for what was uncovered during the test and monitors your online performance.
Before you decide if AffiliateWP is the plugin for you, make sure to try it out with a test. You can run tests for multiple locations, different browsers, and even connection types. This will help us get a better understanding of how your website will look in different scenarios.
To start with GTmetrix
dotcom-monitor
Dotcom-monitor’s product provides 25 different locations and 7 different browsers, including Blackberry. This is a great feature that should make me think they really need to update their service.
We’re thrilled to share with you our new Continually Live Test. It’s a preview of what it would look like for someone that comes back to your website just one time without having cached resources on their computer. Just run the tests, and your servers will be graded on load time and content-based speed optimization along with details about what makes someone return to your site a second time. Grab a detailed page speed insight report made by Lighthouse.
Get started with dotcom-monitor
Site 24*7
Site24x7 offers a simple alternative to the more expensive Pingdom. The Free Forever plan supports five email-based monitors. It’s probably enough for any small website.
Their premium plans are affordable for small businesses of all sizes with prices starting at $9/month. You get 10 monitors plus 1 synthetic transaction and over 110 locations, status pages that show you when viewers are coming to your site, and 500mb of logs before we send you the service.
To start with Site24*7
