Best Website Builder Software 2021

Which Website Builder Loads the Fastest?

Are you wondering which website builder loads pages the fastest? We've tested the page speeds of six different website builders to see how they compare when it comes to desktop and mobile performance.

Best-in-class websites have outstanding content, are user-friendly, and fully optimized for SEO. However, even with all of these elements, if your web pages load too slowly, it will deter users from visiting and interacting with your website.

All website builders claim to be fully-optimized and lightning fast, but there must be variation in actual performance.

With this in mind, we decided to conduct an experiment testing the page speeds of six different website buildersWix, Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress, Webflow, and GoDaddy. Below, we’ve written a comprehensive guide comparing the page speeds of these builders to help you find out which one loads the fastest.

Which Website Builder Loads the Fastest?

Based upon Google PageSpeed Insights, which is described in more detail below, we found that Webflow loads the fastest on desktop, and Wix loads the fastest on mobile.

Here’s the PageSpeed Insights scores for each website builder on desktop and mobile.

Website BuilderDesktop ScoreMobile Score
Webflow9938
Wix9472
GoDaddy9262
Squarespace8730
WordPress7639
Weebly7126

As you can see below, Webflow is the fastest website builder for desktop. Wix is the fastest website builder for mobile. Unfortunately, Weebly performed the worst on both desktop and mobile.

RankDesktopMobile
1WebflowWix
2WixGoDaddy
3GoDaddyWordPress
4SquarespaceWebflow
5WordPressSquarespace
6WeeblyWeebly

Table of Contents

How We Tested Website Builder Speed

We began this experiment by creating a single web page on each platform. We made sure each page contained the same site elements to ensure that the only variable to affect page speed was the actual website builder. The site elements included in each web page were:

  • A navigation bar
  • A video uploaded from YouTube
  • An image
  • A contact form
  • Text
  • A button

After creating each page and publishing each website, we inserted their URLs on Google Chrome into Google PageSpeed Insights. We used the overall performance score and lab data statistics of each page for our analysis.

What is Page Speed?

Page speed is the amount of time between a browser requesting a certain webpage and when the processing and rendering of that page’s content is finished. Essentially, page speed is the measurement of how long it takes for content on a page to load.

There are many factors that affect page speed. This includes the quantity and type of content, connection type, device, operating system, and browser.

Why is Page Speed Important?

Page speed is important because slower page response times have an increased chance for page abandonment. This is particularly true for those who are viewing web pages on mobile, which accounts for 68.1% of website visits. Faster page speeds produce a much better user experience.

Page speed is also important because it affects how your web pages will rankin search engines. Google announced in 2010 that speed would be a ranking signal for desktop searches and as of July 2018, speed has been a ranking signal for mobile searches. How you rank in search engines is incredibly important because organic search is the largest driver of traffic for websites.

What is Google PageSpeed Insights?

Google PageSpeed Insights is a report that shares performance data for a page on desktop and mobile devices. It also provides suggestions on how a page can be improved.

There are two types of data that Google PageSpeed Insights provide – lab data and field data. From these data points, Google produces an overall performance score between 0 and 100.

Lab data is useful for debugging issues. It helps you identify, isolate, and fix performance issues. Field data is useful for capturing real-world user experience. It collects actual performance data from real page loads made by users.

We only used lab data in our experiment because this data is based on a load of a page on a single device with a fixed set of network conditions. This eliminated the variability included in real-world user experience data.

Google PageSpeed Insights Factors to Consider

There are certain Google PageSpeed Insights factors you should consider when observing the speed of your pages. In our experiment, we specifically focused on lab data metrics, which include:

Lab Data MetricDefinition
First Contentful PaintThis metric measures how long it takes the browser to render the first piece of DOM content after a user navigates to your page. DOM content is any content that isn’t included within an iframe. You should aim for a FCP time under 0.95 seconds.
Time to InteractiveThis metric measures how long it takes a page to become fully interactive. A page is considered fully interactive when the page displays useful content, event handlers are registered for the most visible page elements, and the page responds to user interactions within 50 ms. You should aim for a TTI time under 2.51 seconds.
Speed IndexThis metric measures how quickly content is visually displayed during a page load. You should aim for a SI time under 1.33 seconds.
Total Blocking TimeThis metric measures the total amount of time that is blocked from responding to user input, like mouse clicks, screen taps, or keyboard presses. You should aim for a TBT time under 160 milliseconds.
Largest Contentful PaintThis metric measures how long it takes the largest content element in the viewport to render on screen. It approximates when the main content of the page is visible to users. You should aim for a LCP time under 1.22 seconds.
Cumulative Layout ShiftThis metric measures the visual stability of a web page. It specifically measures the cumulative score of all of the unexpected layout shifts, which is when a visible element changes its position from one rendered frame to the next, that occurs when a page starts loading. You should aim for a CLS score under 0.11.

Page Speeds for Different Website Builders

Below are the calculated page speeds for six different website builders. In general, your pages on desktop and mobile should achieve a performance score between 90 and 100.

Overall, each website builder performs generally well on desktop. 99 was the highest desktop performance score, and 71 was the lowest desktop performance score.

However, on mobile, each website builder greatly underperformed. Only Wix and GoDaddy had mobile performance scores above 49.

Webflow

Webflow received a desktop performance score of 99 and a mobile performance score of 38. Webflow’s desktop performance score is the highest of the website builders we tested in our experiment.

Webflow Homepage

Below are Webflow’s performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

Webflow Page Speed Desktop
Webflow Page Speed Mobile
Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP0.5 s1.9 s
TTI1.7 s14.4 s
SI1.0 s5.6 s
TBT90 ms940 ms
LCP0.7 s13.7 s
CLS0.0470.077

Wix

Wix received a desktop performance score of 94 and a mobile performance score of 72. Overall, Wix is the most reliable in terms of page speed – its desktop performance score is the second highest and its mobile performance score is the highest of the six platforms we tested.

Wix Homepage

Below are Wix’s performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

Wix Page Speed Desktop
Wix Page Speed Mobile
Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP0.6 s2.6 s
TTI2.9 s6.1 s
SI1.4 s2.6 s
TBT130 ms180 ms
LCP1.1 s4.9 s
CLS0.0010

GoDaddy

GoDaddy received a desktop performance score of 92 and a mobile performance score of 62. After Wix, GoDaddy is the second most reliable in terms of desktop and mobile page speed.

GoDaddy Homepage

Below are GoDaddy’s performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

GoDaddy Page Speed Desktop
GoDaddy Page Speed Mobile
Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP0.7 s1.0 s
TTI2.4 s11.2 s
SI1.1 s5.2 s
TBT210 ms1240 ms
LCP0.8 s2.2 s
CLS0.0180.047

Squarespace

Squarespace received a desktop performance score of 87 and a mobile performance score of 30. Unfortunately, this means it ranked 4th out of 6 on desktop and 5th out of 6 on mobile.

Squarespace Homepage

Below are Squarespace’s performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

Squarespace Page Speed Desktop
Squarespace Page Speed Mobile
Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP0.8 s1.9 s
TTI2.6 s14.4 s
SI1.1 s5.6 s
TBT270 ms940 ms
LCP0.8 s13.7 s
CLS0.0630.077

WordPress

WordPress received a desktop performance score of 76 and a mobile performance score of 39. This means it ranked 5th out of 6 on desktop and 3rd out of 6 on mobile.

WordPress Homepage

Below are WordPress’ performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

WordPress Page Speed Desktop
WordPress Page Speed Mobile

Below are the times and scores for WordPress in terms of lab data for both desktop and mobile:

Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP1.5 s3.0 s
TTI4.5 s20.9 s
SI1.7 s9.1 s
TBT110 ms1520 ms
LCP2.2 s3.9 s
CLS0.0360.041

Weebly

Weebly received a performance score of 71 and a mobile performance score of 26. Weebly’s scores are the lowest of all website builders tested in this article.

Weebly Homepage

Below are Weebly’s performance scores and lab data metrics times and scores for both desktop and mobile:

Weebly Page Speed Desktop
Weebly Page Speed Mobile
Lab Data MetricDesktopMobile
FCP1.0 s4.2 s
TTI3.5 s12.1 s
SI1.9 s7.3 s
TBT190 ms1460 ms
LCP2.9 s10.5 s
CLS0.0220.053
Amy Yang

Amy Yang is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses on software markets and products. Amy has expertise in content production and managing digital and social platforms. She has a Bachelor of Science in Communication & Media, and a Minor in Web Programming and Applications from NYU. You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

Amy is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Course creation software
  • Electronic signature software
  • Social media software
  • Website builder software

Get the latest from SoftwarePundit

We'll share our latest software reviews, technology tips, and deals.

*