Top 6 Tools to Get Website Load Time Statistics

on October 2, 2020

In theory, the internet provides a level playing field to businesses of all sizes and domains. However, getting the top search engine rankings isn’t easy for any business. It requires continuous improvements in website performance, user experience, and investment of time and effort in various search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. A slow running website or pages with broken elements can jeopardize these efforts. Businesses need website speed testing tools to understand how quickly their webpages are loading, detect bottlenecks or page speed improvement areas, and resolve issues based on website load time statistics. In this article, we list some top tools to get website load time statistics with a brief description of the features and advantages of each tool.

SolarWinds Pingdom

© 2020 SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

SolarWinds® Pingdom® is a popular website availability and performance monitoring tool designed to extract insights into website load time statistics. Its page speed monitoring is simple to use; all you need to do is enter your page URL and choose a testing region. The tool performs page speed tests every 30 minutes, providing results for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements on the page, in the order of page load. The results can be easily analyzed using the waterfall chart, which lists file sizes, path, load times, and other details about elements on the webpage. This visualization helps you quickly identify slow-loading elements. The tool also offers filmstrip screenshots captured at a frequency of 500 ms during the page load. With the screenshots, you can visually track if critical elements on the page are loading fast enough. Based on this visual analysis, developers can optimize a website to make improvements in perceived load time. In addition to synthetic tools for page speed monitoring, you can also try out Pingdom Real User Monitoring (RUM) features, which provide insights into the real-world performance of your web pages. You can use the Apdex score or create your own scores to ensure the optimum customer experience. Pingdom plans start at $10 per month, and you can also sign up for a 14-day free trial.

GTMetrix

© 2020 GTMetrix, All rights reserved.

GTMetrix offers comprehensive page speed monitoring covering important metrics, aggregated scores, and speed testing from multiple regions across the globe. You can also gauge real-world performance data across mobile and desktops. It provides a toolkit to perform tests on simulated devices to find opportunities for improvement of page speed and user experience. GTMetrix graphical reports, with options for customizing the view using a date range, zooming and panning, and annotations, allow you to inspect and understand page performance better. Additionally, you can set threshold-based alerts based on aggregated scores or any critical metric. The tool is highly useful for both marketing and development teams and can prove to be a good fit for most organizations; plans start at $14.95 per month. There’s also a free plan, which can help in the evaluation.

Dotcom-Monitor

© 1998-2020 Dotcom-Monitor, Inc. All rights reserved.

Dotcom-Monitor is another capable website performance monitoring solution designed to help you track page load times from its global probe servers. Its reports help you quickly identify the fastest and slowest elements on your webpages, and you can get a breakdown of the performance of each element on the page. The waterfall charts give a clear view of elements’ performance as the page loads. You can also use the network throttling feature to test your website performance under different network conditions. The tool offers advanced capabilities with both real user and synthetic monitoring features, and its plans start at $19.95 per month.

Site24x7

A service by Zoho Corp © 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Site24x7 is a well-rounded website monitoring solution, offering advanced RUM and synthetic monitoring features, granular reports, alerts, and third-party integrations. You can get website load time statistics from 110 locations across the globe and analyze performance using real browsers. While you can get its starter plan for as low as $9 per month, it includes only email and forum support, which can lead to delays when facing technical issues. The vendor-recommended Pro plan is priced at $35 per month.

Google PageSpeed Insights

©2020 Google LLC All rights reserved.

PageSpeed Insights by Google is a popular tool among developers. It tracks websites in real time and provides suggestions for performance improvements across devices. In its performance reports, you can get an aggregate score to help you understand the overall performance of the page. According to PageSpeed recommendations, organizations should aim to score above 90 in this metric. It also provides a summary of page performance data over the last 28 days for different metrics under Chrome User Experience (CrUX), categorizing the performance as good, poor, or needs improvement. With these data points and suggestions, developers can easily make informed decisions about improvements in the page performance.

WebPageTest

© 2020 WebPageTest LLC

WebPageTest is an open-source webpage speed testing tool, originally developed and used internally by AOL. Since 2008, the tool has grown a large community who continuously makes improvements to the software. Being an open-source tool, it relies on its partners for the testing servers. The tool’s interface might appear a bit outdated; however, it gives several advanced options to set up test parameters such as test location, browser, minimum test duration, and also an option to run JavaScript after the test. While the tool offers flexibility to configure speed tests, it might be a bit complex for first-time users or those lacking technical knowledge.

Conclusion

We have listed some popular commercial and free/open-source tools for gathering and analyzing website load time statistics. You might have to consider your budget, monitoring requirements, and usability factors for shortlisting a solution for your organization. However, in our evaluation, we found SolarWinds Pingdom was the most affordable, simple, and capable solution for organizations of all sizes. We recommend a free trial of the solution to get the most out of your websites.

As of September 2020

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