Modern Web in Numbers
Modern web is beyond broken. Even the simplest websites are becoming performance, privacy and accessibility nightmares. And it's only getting worse.
How bloated are popular websites?
Important note: beside the obvious page size problem, TTI (Time To Interactive) is also a huge problem - a lot of websites take way too much time to become interactive (usable). This problem is more pronounced on mobile phones and other slower devices.
Site  | Page Size | JavaScript | CSS | Images | TTI | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cnn.com | 9.26 MB 316 requests | 3.4 MB 73 requests | 27.19 KB 2 requests | 1.77 MB 112 requests | 51 s | 16 |
| nytimes.com | 7.05 MB 170 requests | 5.17 MB 49 requests | 203.15 KB 6 requests | 575.44 KB 26 requests | 49 s | 27 |
| ebay.com | 1.26 MB 109 requests | 739.78 KB 24 requests | 65.43 KB 4 requests | 308.36 KB 56 requests | 13 s | 57 |
| aliexpress.com | 1.82 MB 198 requests | 1.38 MB 62 requests | 65.4 KB 16 requests | 175.18 KB 65 requests | 22 s | 29 |
| reddit.com | 1.76 MB 234 requests | 1.02 MB 181 requests | 24.83 KB 1 request | 203.31 KB 25 requests | 16 s | 43 |
Small and fast is beautiful
List of the sites which fit into the above description.
If you have (or know) a site which belongs here, please submit the url here.
| Site | Page Size | JavaScript | CSS | Images | TTI | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| news.ycombinator.com | 12 KB 6 requests | 2.22 KB 1 request | 2.07 KB 1 request | 1.36 KB 3 requests | 1 s | 100 |
| terbium.io | 28.64 KB 5 requests | 0 Bytes 0 requests | 3.87 KB 2 requests | 1.43 KB 1 request | 1 s | 100 |
| nintil.com | 403.14 KB 21 requests | 322.58 KB 7 requests | 11.52 KB 2 requests | 552 Bytes 2 requests | 6 s | 74 |
| php.watch | 606.4 KB 14 requests | 12.84 KB 1 request | 10.8 KB 1 request | 577.59 KB 11 requests | 2 s | 99 |
| kmarkiv.com | 129.52 KB 11 requests | 115.99 KB 3 requests | 3.04 KB 1 request | 4.62 KB 2 requests | 3 s | 96 |
| picnicss.com | 133.93 KB 11 requests | 112.53 KB 3 requests | 9.23 KB 1 request | 1.48 KB 3 requests | 4 s | 86 |
| macwright.com | 374.12 KB 12 requests | 0 Bytes 0 requests | 0 Bytes 0 requests | 370.5 KB 11 requests | 1 s | 100 |
| snestudio.com | 125.68 KB 7 requests | 96.04 KB 2 requests | 7.23 KB 1 request | 18.79 KB 2 requests | 3 s | 92 |
| maxlaumeister.com | 157.92 KB 23 requests | 116.73 KB 7 requests | 6.73 KB 3 requests | 24.77 KB 8 requests | 3 s | 89 |
| htmx.org | 827.35 KB 42 requests | 63.21 KB 5 requests | 56.71 KB 2 requests | 693.86 KB 32 requests | 2 s | 97 |
* HN deserves the special mention here - written in Arc and serving millions of page view daily on a single server
For the reference, here's also betterways.dev's numbers (I still have to optimize a few things):
| Site | Page Size | JavaScript | CSS | Images | TTI | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| betterways.dev | 32.07 KB 6 requests | 2.03 KB 1 request | 2.23 KB 1 request | 21.13 KB 1 request | 2 s | 99 |
Quick tips on making the web a better place
Debloat your website and make it accessible
- Start with a clean and semantically correct HTML and progressively enhance it according to your client's capabilities
- Keep your TTI (time to interactive) as low as your can
- Return only minimal Javascript - try to avoid thick SPA frameworks whenever you can (they're breaking the core web principles and the result will always be more bloated and more broken) - see the projects like htmx and webcomponents-based approaches (like Github's Catalyst)
- Return only minimal CSS - you may not need a CSS framework - by using custom CSS, you'll have much better control and understanding of your stylesheets
- Prefer using system font stack over custom fonts
- Don't abuse your client's trust (their privacy, security, resources, etc.)
* Note: the numbers are for reference only; they are periodically refreshed by using PageSpeed Insights (mobile).