Page speed is complicated, and there are many marketing claims around page speed. Therefore, we decided to do a test on different platforms where we tested their featured/premium cases with their top agencies.
Average page speed on different ecommerce platforms
Headless VS Shopify VS WordPress & WooCommerce
We decided to test:
- Average page speed with Headless (We chose some Swedish companies using Centra or Norse, two very capable platforms)
- Average page speed with Shopify
- Average page speed with Qala WooCommerce
The test was created to capture first impressions, therefore we focused on the front page of the store.
The test was conducted during different periods mostly due to our general availability.
- Headless platforms tested October 2022.
- Shopify tested March 2023
- Qala WooCommerce tested March 2023
Results
The result of this survey is, surprisingly, that WordPress can be made to perform far above more expensive technologies if packaged correctly. Headless comes a distant second and Shopify falls well below reasonable results.
Average page speed with Headless:
31 / 100
Average page speed with Shopify:
19 / 100
Average page speed with Qala WooCommerce:
64 / 100
What is performance?
Performance is a complicated issue and having done extensive work on performance ourselves with the development of our Qala WooCommerce platform, we believe the main elements are:
- Optimise images to display in modern formats and always at the right resolution
- Load video in byte size instead of as one large file
- Rebuild CSS to load what’s important first
- Tell the browser what to load first, what to load last and what can wait
- Avoid loading third-party Javascript in the main thread (or better yet – remove them altogether)
- Loading only what is needed, combining scripts, etc.
All of these things are super important and modern web development practices that can help you along the way.
Page speed score for sites running Headless
There are plenty of sites running Headless out there. We looked around at some of the best cases from Centra and Norse in Sweden. Some of the most successful brands are on these solutions and their sites are seen by millions of people. Let’s get started!
Spotify
Spotify.design is a beautiful site with lots of neat, subtle animations. We love it.
But the performance is not great. Here’s a screenshot from PageSpeed Insights (we removed the first bit to avoid a long screenshot).
The main problem with this site is that it lacks a reasonable infrastructure. This means that there is 28MB of data to be transferred for this site. That’s not exactly good for performance, and it could have been easily avoided with good standardisation and good infrastructure.
Let’s look at some other examples.
Maya Delorez
Absolutely fantastic site! But their performance results are much lower than we imagined. Built on Centra.
Djerf Avenue
Very cool site and a great company that we have worked with and helped scale on Woo, and now using headless. Built on Centra.
SofaDirect
This company sells sofas and is familiar to us. Built on Norse.
Stronger
No good result. Built on Centra.
PS of Sweden
Another page that looks really good. Built on Centra.
EmmaS
Simple and stylish site. Built on Centra.
iDeal of Sweden
One of our old customers that we helped to scale. With WooCommerce they had their highest turnover ever. Unfortunately, they have seen a huge drop in turnover since then. Built on Centra.
Johnells
Great clothes and we love this site. Built by some very smart people. Built on Norse and a custom platform.
Page speed scores for sites running Shopify
This list was compiled by gathering some of the cases that Shopify themselves consider their biggest ambassadors.
Gymshark
Bulletproof
Buzz Feed News
Eightvape
Huel
Kyliecosmetics
Soylent
WWE
Zoofashions
Page speed scores for sites running Qala WooCommerce
WordPress is a bit behind when it comes to performance, it’s true. That’s one of the reasons we created Qala. Qala uses microservices as a way to extend WordPress functionality so that the best technology is used for things like image optimisation, heavy database queries, and so on.
This technology is either proprietary or unique, it’s just very cleverly packaged in a cost-effective way which creates huge value for money.
Monkids
Our latest release at the “Standard” level.
Anchor Room
Tonn Furniture
Our latest release on our lowest performance level package.
Star Clinic
Qala – Hybrid headless solution with good page speed instantly
Interested in learning more about Qala and how it can fit into your digital investment? Contact us today to book a demo.