No Database, No PHP: Why Static Pages Arrive Faster
On mobile, 40% of WordPress sites passed all three Core Web Vitals in 2024. A static page skips the work a WordPress server does before it can reply.
When a visitor asks a WordPress site for a page, the server starts work. PHP runs, the database answers a series of queries, the theme and its plugins each add their part, and the finished HTML goes back. Only then can the browser start drawing the page.
A static page skips that. The HTML was built when you last published, so the server’s whole job is to find the file and send it. That holds when a post is shared widely, too: a thousand visitors in a minute cost a thousand file reads, with no queue of database queries behind them.
What the numbers say
The HTTP Archive’s 2024 Web Almanac checked real visitors’ experience of the main website builders against Google’s Core Web Vitals. These measure how quickly the main content appears, how quickly the page responds to a tap and how much it jumps about while loading. On mobile, 40% of WordPress sites passed all three. Wix reached 57%, Drupal 56% and Squarespace 60% (Web Almanac 2024, CMS chapter).
WordPress is improving quickly, up from 28% the year before, and a well-built WordPress site with good caching can be fast. Many carry a heavy theme and plugins that each add their own scripts.
Google says pages that do well on these measures fit what its core ranking systems reward (Google Search Central). Speed is also the first thing a visitor notices on a phone with one bar of signal.
What we add on the server
Every response from us is compressed with Brotli, which shrinks text files further than gzip, and sent over HTTP/2, which fetches a page’s files side by side over one connection. Our servers are in Manchester, so a request from a UK visitor doesn’t cross an ocean. We add no tracking scripts of our own to your pages (optimised delivery).
What can still slow a static site
Images and other people’s scripts. An oversized photo is as slow on a static site as anywhere else. Every build container includes libvips, so you can resize images and convert them to WebP as part of the build (build configuration). Scripts from other companies are the other usual weight, and each one you remove is a request your visitors no longer wait for.
Yesterday’s post: no login page to guess.
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