CMS performance
How the most-used CMS platforms perform on real-user Core Web Vitals data.
At a glance the headline numbers for CMS performance
How the most-used CMS platforms perform on real-user Core Web Vitals data.
Squarespace passes TTFB most often of any CMS. 98.5% of its sites pass. Adobe Commerce passes least at 31.9%. WordPress (the most-used CMS) sits at 35.8%. The gap is 67 percentage points.
The ranking sorted by TTFB at p75, fastest first
| # | CMS | TTFB p75 | Passing | Sites | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Squarespace | 466ms | 98.5% | 2,029 | |
| 2 | Shopify | 470ms | 96.6% | 7,616 | |
| 3 | TYPO3 | 858ms | 74.3% | 95 | |
| 4 | Wix | 918ms | 72.0% | 5,212 | |
| 5 | Drupal | 923ms | 68.1% | 3,046 | |
| 6 | Joomla | 935ms | 65.8% | 2,329 | |
| 7 | Adobe Commerce | 1.5s | 31.9% | 988 | |
| 8 | WordPress | 1.7s | 35.8% | 58,969 |
Passing TTFB per CMS which group passes the TTFB most often
99% of Squarespace sites pass TTFB. Adobe Commerce trails 67 points behind, leaving 68% of its sites failing. computed
All five vitals at once the whole category without toggling - cell is the pass rate, small number the p75
One row per CMS, one column per vital - the cell is the share of sites passing, the small number the p75. No toggling needed to see where the category actually differs.
Squarespace leads on TTFB: 99% of its sites pass. Adobe Commerce trails at 32%. computed
Why this matters for the Core Web Vitals, and where to start fixing it
The CMS decides a lot about your Core Web Vitals before you write a line of your own code. It controls the HTML that ships, the scripts and styles that load by default, and how images are handled. Two sites on the same platform can score very differently depending on the theme and plugins, but the platform sets the starting point and the ceiling for how much you can tune.
Start with what the platform loads that you do not need. Strip the default scripts and styles that come with themes and plugins, defer the JavaScript that is not needed for the first paint, and make sure images go out in modern formats at the right size. On script-heavy platforms the biggest wins are usually in cutting and deferring what loads on every page.
How does your CMS affect Core Web Vitals?
Among the most-used CMS platforms, Squarespace reaches a good TTFB on 98.5% of sites; WordPress on 35.8%.
Chrome field data from 189,915 sites, representing millions of real page loads. How we measured.