Definitive guide

Statistics on website load time

Website Load Time Statistics 2026 – 51 Key Figures You Must Know

Website loading time, measured in milliseconds, is the length of time the full content of a webpage is displayed on the browser of an online user or visitor.

One of the reasons search engine optimization is done on a website is to speed up loading time, which greatly affects user experience and conversion rates.

To better appreciate what this means, I’ve compiled key figures that you must know on web load time statistics this 2026.

1. Websites that load longer than 4 seconds experience an average drop in conversion rates of 4.42% per second of delay.

The industry standard for a website’s loading time is 0 to 4 seconds. Loading time is dependent on the web hosting server’s responsiveness, which should be 500 milliseconds to 800 milliseconds in industry-standard speed. The faster the responsiveness of a web hosting server, the faster a website’s loading speed will be. Conversion rates, as per Hubspot, fall at an average of 4.42% per second delay of a website loading its contents.

2. Flywheel ranked #1 in server response time with 0.128ms as of August 2023.

In a study conducted by Web Hosting Buddy, Flywheel showed it had the fastest server response time of 0.128 milliseconds with an average of 0.425 milliseconds.

Flywheel is a hosting provider and is considered the fastest in terms of server responsiveness, overthrowing SiteGround’s 0.368 ms response time (0.637 ms on average).

Flywheel also won against the other popular hosting providers, DreamHost (#5 at 0.316ms), WP Engine (#7 at 0.392ms), HostGator (#10 at 0.446ms), Bluehost (#14 at 0.784ms), and GoDaddy (#15 at 1.354ms) in server response time.

3. Bluehost ranked #1 in having the fastest page load time of 1.895ms as of August 2023.

Despite having a slower server response time compared to Flywheel, Bluehost took the top spot among 20 hosting providers for having the fastest page load time of 1.895 milliseconds, with an average of 2.4581. Flywheel, on the other hand, only ranked #9 for having 1.829 milliseconds as its fastest page load time.

WP Engine took the second place for its 1.802 milliseconds page load time, averaging 2.6470 milliseconds in page load time. Bluehost also surpassed the fastest page load time of DreamHost (#4 at 2.359ms), HostGator (#13 at 2.296ms), and GoDaddy (#20 at 3.198ms).

4. Webflow websites have the highest page speed score of 99/100 with the fastest loading time of 0.5 seconds.

Besides server response time, the type of website builder used in creating a website also affects the length of time it load. This is due to the coding used by the website builder’s programmers in making the ready-made templates and themes they offer.

In terms of website builders, a study I made on 1,161 Webflow websites from my database showed the highest page speed core of 99/100 and an average page speed core of 77.2/100. My study also showed that the fastest loading time of these 1,161 Webflow websites is 0.5 seconds, with an average loading time of 2.1 seconds.

5. WordPress.com has higher TTFB than Webflow.com by 1.1 seconds on mobile and 0.5 seconds on desktop.

Time To First Byte (TTFB) is one of the measures in assessing page load speed based on server response time. A good TTFB, as per Google PageSpeed Insights, is less than 200 milliseconds.

When it comes to WordPress.com, data from Google PageSpeed Insights showed it has a TTFB of 0.9 seconds on mobile and 0.5 seconds on desktop.

This is way faster than Webflow.com’s TTFB of 2 seconds on mobile and 1 second on desktop. MyCodelessWebsite.com, which is built on WordPress, has a TTFB of 0.6 seconds on mobile and 0.3 seconds on desktop. Thus, based on TTFB, WordPress is faster than Webflow.

6. The average mobile TTFB is 2.594s on mobile and 1.286s on desktop as of October 2019.

A study conducted by Backlinko in October 2019 on 5.2 million websites showed that the average Time to First Byte (TTFB) speed of a website browsed on a mobile phone or gadget is 2.594 seconds, and on a desktop computer is 1.286 seconds.

While a website takes an average of 27.3 seconds to fully load on a mobile device and 10.3 seconds on a desktop. This data shows the website takes an average of 87.84% longer on mobile phones and gadgets than on desktop computers.

7. “Heavier websites” or those with a lot of visual content take 318% longer to fully load than “lighter websites.”

In the same Backlinko study, they found out that webpages with bigger page sizes due to visual content take far longer to load (318%) when compared to their lighter counterparts, which was found to load at 486% faster. This means that page weight is a primary determinant on how fast it takes to fully load a website.

8. Websites made with Javascript frameworks load 213% faster than other frameworks.

Backlinko highlighted that websites that use third-party scripts have slower loading speeds such as those that use Meteor and Tweenmax Javascript frameworks. While websites with Wink and Gatsby Javascript frameworks load 213% faster than others. Page loading time loses speed each time a third-party script is added at 34.1 milliseconds.

9. Weebly ranked #1 on page speed desktop performance against other content management systems at 49.5% in 2019.

Data from Backlinko show that out of 20 top content management systems, Weebly aced page speed performance rankings on desktop. Weebly recorded a 49.5% fast page speed with 41.8% on average. While Squarespace got the 2nd post with 48.4% fast page speed with 40.7% average page speed. On the other hand, Wix got the 17th spot and WordPress the 15th for registering a fast page speed of 20.9% (60.5% on average) and 25.3% (36.3% on average), respectively, on desktop.

10. Squarespace ranked #1 on CMS page speed mobile performance for garnering 41.8%.

When it comes to mobile speed, websites made from Squarespace showed to be faster by 41.8% on mobile and 46.2% on average. Squarespace overthrew Weebly websites using content management systems which only registered 39.6% on its fastest and 47.3% on average in 2019. Adobe Experience Manager came in second for websites with content management systems at 40.7% on its fastest and 38.5% on average.

WordPress websites similarly ranked the 15th on mobile for having a fast speed of 24.2% and an average speed of 35.2% Meanwhile, Wix websites with CMS ranked 19th for having only a 12.1% fast speed with 66.0% on average speed.

11. 73% of online marketers believe that improved page speed is a truly urgent concern for businesses.

Consumers have grown extremely impatient in a convenience- and technology-laden society, such that attention spans have greatly declined by 94.12% since 2000.

According to The Three Top Therapy, the average attention span of humans in 2000 was 12.5 seconds, which became only 8.25 seconds on average as of August 2023. A goldfish, which has an average attention span of 9 seconds, has more patience and focus than humans. This is down by 4.25 seconds in 23 years.

Unbounce’s Ryan Engley, an author and consultant, pointed out that companies with lightning-fast websites also get higher sales due to better user experience. Thus, a great number of online marketers (73%) find it very urgent for businesses to improve their website’s loading speed.

12. 32.3% of online visitors can only wait 4 to 6 seconds for a webpage to load on their mobile device.

In a study of 750 random consumers, Unbounce discovered that 32.3% of online visitors can only wait for 4 to 6 seconds for a webpage to load on their mobile phones. While 24.0% of online visitors were willing to wait for 7 to 10 seconds, 5.3% for 11 to 13 seconds, and 11.5% for more than 13 seconds.

More than a quarter or 26.9% of online visitors, on the other hand, wait for only 1 to 3 seconds for a page to load, which somewhat echoes what Google reported that most people leave after 3 seconds a webpage hasn’t loaded yet.

13. There is a 123% increase in mobile site visitor bounce rate for every 10 seconds delay in page load time.

In Google’s “10 Years Of Digital Marketing Insights” that spanned 2012 to 2022, mobile speed was found to be a key indicator of an online business’ success. Google conducted a research of 900,000 mobile ads’ landing pages from 126 countries in 2017. At that time, it took an average of 22 seconds to fully load a webpage on mobile. They also discovered that the probability of bounce rates increase by 123% whenever delays in page load time occur within one to 10 seconds.

14. 46% of landing pages fall below Google’s recommend 5-second loading time.

Data from a Call To Action Conference survey held in Vancouver last 2018 show that majority of online marketers (46%) have landing pages for advertisements with a loading speed of 6 to 10 seconds. While 34% have landing pages with a loading speed of 11 to 20 seconds and 5% with 21 seconds or more.

Cumulatively, this makes 85% of landing pages not meet Google standards, which is 5 seconds or less. Only 13% of landing pages comply with 4 to 5 seconds loading time and a 2% with 3 seconds loading time, making a mere 15% that actually comply with standards.

15. Of the 26.9% of mobile users who can wait for 1 to 3 seconds for websites to load, 64% are iOS users.

iOS users comprise most of U.S. cellphones and it would be great to note they are more impatient than Android users.

Data from Unbounce show that 36% of Android users were willing to wait 1 to 3 seconds for a page to load and 61% are willing to wait for 11 to 13 seconds. In contrast, 64% of iOs users can only wait for 1 to 3 seconds to load and a mere 36% were willing to wait for 11 to 13 seconds.

16. 45.4% of online visitors to ecommerce websites say they would be less likely to purchase from it due to slow loading time.

In an Unbounce survey of 525 respondents, 45.4% say they are less likely to purchase from an ecommerce website that has slow load times. While 36.8% say they would leave the website and are less likely to return to it.

Though 22.5% of the respondents did not provide a response based on the given options in the survey, 11.9% emphasized that they would likely tell a friend how slow an ecommerce website loads.

17. 86% of young women will leave an ecommerce site due to slow loading times.

In the same Unbounce survey of 525 respondents, data also showed that men are more patient than women when it comes to online shopping. The majority of female respondents aged 18 to 24 said they will stop shopping and close a tab when an ecommerce website has a slow loading speed. This is against a mere 14% of men who said they would do the same time.

18. An average of 54.7% of internet users would prefer simpler websites since these load faster.

56.6% of 542 Unbounce survey respondents said they would be willing to give up animation, and another 52.8% would be willing to give up videos in websites of splashy design over fast loading times. While 24.1% of respondents said they will give up photos in the design if a website loads faster. There are, however, 15.4% of respondents who did not choose a response from the given options.

19. Only 34.2% of online users would blame a website for slow loading time.

The primary culprit online users blame for slow loading time is their internet connection based on the response of 50.5% of 534 respondents. While only 34.2% actually blame a website for slow loading time and 15.4% blame their mobile carrier.

MobileGroove Analyst Peggy Anne Salze underscored that consumers don’t like to wait, regardless of whether they are purchasing an item online or in person. Thus, it is a must for companies to boost user experience through high-speed websites.

20. Only 3% of online marketers care to ensure websites load at faster speeds

In a 2019 survey on campaign priority performance, data show that online marketers do not prioritize website loading times. Most marketers (33%) prioritize A/B testing or optimizing pages instead. Ensuring websites load with faster speeds is at the bottom of the online marketer’s list (3%).

While, in between this two extreme poles, “refining ad target” got the second spot at 19% and “personalizing website content” got the third spot at 16%. The “creating more engaging ad copy” followed at 13% then “other” got 7%. This is succeeded by “adding compelling design elements” at 5% and “improving mobile responsiveness” at 3%.

Website Load Time Statistics_Squarespace

21. 57% of online marketers resort to optimizing videos, images, and other media files to resolve their slow-loading websites.

Online marketers were found to conduct several activities just to make their websites load faster. Most of them, or 57%, would optimize their websites’ media files, video, and images.

While 43% improve caching and hosting solutions. More than a quarter or 39% use tools to run speed audits and 38% decreased dependency on CSS and JavaScript.

The implementation of Accelerated Mobile Pages were used by 22% of online marketers to make their website load faster. Finally, there are those or 14% of online marketers who use Content Delivery Networks whenever a website loads slow.

22. Tubi is the #1 video streaming website in the US in terms of website speed.

The speed of video streaming websites is becoming more relevant as sports competitions and championships have also moved online. In the United States, Fox Corporation’s television streaming service, Tubi, has taken the lead and proven it during the 2025 Super Bowl.

Statista reported that it provided only a 26-second lag time to the live broadcast, beating all other streaming services. As a result, Tubi increased in viewership after the 2025 Super Bowl.

23. Websites in the US have a load time of 1.9 seconds on average as of December 2024.

Data from Google Chrome UX Report as of April 2025 website load time in the United States for desktop computers is 1.7 seconds, for mobile is 1.9 seconds, and for tablet is 2.3 seconds. This translates to an average of 1.9 seconds website load time across devices, making the US the 52nd country with fastest website load time.

24. Website load time in the UK is 0.13 seconds slower on average than in the US as of December 2024.

Websites in the United Kingdom are slower in loading time than in the United States. Accordingly, website load time for desktop computers is 1.6 seconds, for mobile is 1.8 seconds, and for tablet is 2.1 seconds. This means websites in the United States are faster by 0.13 seconds on average than UK websites.

25. Norway has the fastest website load time in the world at less than 600 milliseconds as of December 2024.

One of Norway’s islands, Svalbard, was found to have the fastest load time speed in the world, using the 75th percentile, as per DebugBear. Data show that websites in Svalbard load at less than 600 milliseconds. South Korea is the next in rank with 1.5 seconds website load time.

22. Tubi is the #1 video streaming website in the US in terms of website speed.

Statista reported that it provided only a 26-second lag time to the live broadcast, beating all other streaming services. As a result, Tubi increased in viewership after the 2025 Super Bowl.

23. Websites in the US have a load time of 1.9 seconds on average as of December 2024.

24. Website load time in the UK are 0.13 seconds slower on average than in the US as of December 2024.

25. Norway has the fastest website load time in the world at less than 600 milliseconds as of December 2024.

One of Norway’s islands, Svalbard, was found to have the fastest load time speed in the world using the 75th percentile, as per DebugBear. Data show that websites in Svalbard load at less than 600 milliseconds. South Korea is the next in rank with 1.5 seconds website load time.

26. Conversions decline by 1% for every 100ms delay in website load time in 2026.

As per DigitalApplied, websites lose a 1% conversion each time their load time is delayed by 100ms. Compiled data from various industries after using A/B testing has shown the direct correlation between a website’s load time and revenue.

Thus, the faster a website load the higher will its revenue be regardless of industry. Every one (1) second delay in page response results in a 7% decrease in conversions and a 26% increase in bounce rate.

27. A website load time of 1 to 2 seconds increased bounce rate by 32%.

Research shows that the bounce rate of a website increases by 32% if the load time takes one (1) to two (2) seconds. As domino effect, the conversion rate and revenue is also impacted.

This translates to a decrease in conversion from 3% to 7% or an average of 5%. While the revenue of a $10M-annual-earning website decreases from $300K to $700K, or an average of $500K.

As such, a website with a load time of more than 10 seconds will experience an increase in bounce rates of more than 85%, a decrease in conversions of more than 50%, and a decline in revenue of more than $5M.

28. A website load time of less than 2.5 seconds enjoys a conversion rate of 23%.

Comparatively speaking, websites with a page load time of less than 2.5 seconds as against one with more than 4 seconds has a higher conversion rate of 23%. They also experience a higher add-to-cart rate of 240% compared to websites with a load time of more than five (5) seconds.

Improving a website’s load time, then, by at least 100ms would already increase revenue by $100 K for a website with an annual revenue of $10 M.

29. Third-party scripts comprise 34% of total page weight, which affects website load time.

WordPress websites have been discovered to load more slowly than those using Next.js and Nuxt, basically because it uses a lot of third-party scripts found in widgets. Accordingly, third-party scripts make up 34% of a webpage’s total weight and could be often done using JavaScript.

The average page load size for JavaScript—meaning its largest performance downside—is 468KB. Websites made with JavaScript are said to load longer due to poor image optimization, longer server-side rendering, and code-splitting.

30. WordPress websites load 36% slower than the industry benchmark.

Besides the use of third-party scripts through widgets, WordPress’ core scripting was mostly done in JavaScript. The result is WordPress websites being 36% slower than the industry benchmark.

This translates to having a page load of 3.4 seconds, which is 0.9 seconds higher than Google’s Core Web Vitals recommendation of 2.5 seconds. The load time for WordPress websites is 36% slower than those that comply with Google’s recommendation, such as websites made from Webflow and with Next.js.

31. The average mobile website load time increased by 231% over the last seven (7) years.

Based on data available online, the average mobile load time in 2019 is only 2.59 seconds. This increased to 8.06 seconds in 2026, showing a 231.54% increase. Studies show that there is a 340% gap between mobile load time and desktops, making the former slower in browsing.

32. 5G connections prove to be the fastest in website load time at 1.89 seconds.

A comparative study of connection types and page load time revealed that devices with 5G connections experience faster load times at 1.8 seconds. This is a second short to devices using fiber broadband of 100MBps, which had a load time of 1.9 seconds.

The study also showed that cable broadband connections of 50Mbps to 100 Mbps experience a website load time of 2.5 seconds. Websites using 4G LTE connections, on the other hand, take 4.5 seconds to load.

Other connection types identified were DSL of 10 Mbps to 25 Mbps (5.2 seconds), 3G connection (12.4 seconds), and slow 3G or emerging markets (19.2 seconds).

33. South Korea has the fastest mobile website load time at 3.1 seconds.

South Korea remains true to its name as the primary country for fast internet speeds, resulting in a mobile website load time of 3.1 seconds.

The Land of the Morning Calm has outsped Japan (3.6 secs), the United States (4.9 secs), Western Europe (5.3 secs), and Latin America (8.2 secs). While the Southeast Asian region (9.7 secs) and the Sub-Saharan African region (14.1 secs) lag.

34. A website load time of more than five (5) seconds results in an average bounce rate of 67%.

Website load time directly affects bounce rates. This could be seen in a study that highlighted a website load time of more than five (5) seconds leads to an average bounce rate of 67%. While a website load time of less than two (2) seconds only has an average bounce rate of 38%.

35. A website load time of less than 10 seconds increases bounce rate by 90%.

A study discovered that when a website’s load time goes from one (1) second to 10 seconds, the bounce rate leaps to 90%. Interestingly, a website load time from one (1) second to five (5) seconds results in a bounce rate of 32%.

While an increase in bounce rate by 9% was experienced when the website load time went from one (1) second to three (3) seconds.

36. Reddit has an average website load time of 2.5 seconds in 2026.

Reddit reported that its website load time ranges from 1.5 seconds to 3.5 seconds, or an average of 2.5 seconds for returning visitors. This depends on internet speed, type of device, and geographic location. However, first-time visitors to the website may experience a load time of five (5) seconds.

37. An ecommerce with a slow website load time pushes 37% of its customers away.

Studies have shown that 37% of online buyers are less likely to return to a website with a slow load time. While 12% would likely tell their friends about their bad experience with the website. 45%, on the other hand, would most likely refrain from purchasing from the website.

38. The average website load time of newspapers on mobile is 10.5 seconds.

Newspaper websites take an average load time of 10.5 seconds before visitors on mobile devices can actually read their content. It is an experience mostly due to newspaper websites containing an average page size of 1.35 MB.

This is based on a study conducted by DeviceAtlas for 50 newspaper websites from 18 countries across the globe, using a mid-range device with a connectivity limit of 1.5 Mbps.

The study discovered that top websites Wall Street Journal, La Vanguardia, Ahram, and others, have an average load time of 20.5 seconds or a range of 19 seconds to 22 seconds. As a result, these websites have a high bounce rate and earn lower revenues.

39. Indian newspapers exhibited the fastest website load time at 7.7 seconds on average.

The average load time of Indian newspaper websites was recorded at an average of 7.7 seconds, despite a majority of the population using low-range phones.

Indian newspaper websites outsped French newspaper websites by 3.7 seconds (11.4 secs), Spanish newspaper websites by 5.1 seconds (12.8 secs), and American newspaper websites by 2.7 seconds (10.4 secs).

Results showed that Indian newspapers achieved this speed since a good portion of them (30%) have optimized their website for mobile, resulting in redirects when logging on to their website.

40. The average website load time of the Top 100 newspapers in the world is 4.57 seconds.

Pingdom reports that the average size of the Top 100 newspapers in the world is 3.45 MB, leading to an average load time of 4.57 seconds.

Their study showed that the smallest size for a newspaper homepage belonged to the Financial Times, with an average of only 0.543 MB. The Financial Times was found to have an average load time of only 0.839 seconds.

On the other end of the spectrum, the largest size for a newspaper homepage is an average of 19.82 MB. It belonged to the LA Times. Yet its average load is only 9.2 seconds.

While the Houston Chronicle, whose homepage size was average, recorded the slowest load time of 15.46 seconds on average.

Website Load Time Statistics_Financial Times

41. 72% of the Top 100 newspapers in the world have a website load time of less than 5 seconds.

Looking at the macro perspective, the Top 100 newspapers in the world are mostly (72%) slow compared to Google’s benchmark of less than 2.5 seconds.

Only three (3) of the 100 websites have a load time of less than one (1) second. Five (5) newspaper websites have a load time of one (1) to two (2) seconds, and 17websites have a load time of two (2) to three (3) seconds.

Then there are another 23 newspaper websites that have a load time of three (3) to four (4) seconds and 24 websites that have a load time of four (4) to five (5) seconds. This totals 72 newspaper websites (72%) that have a load time of less than five seconds.

42. 28% of the Top 100 newspapers in the world have a website load time of more than five (5) seconds.

Data shows that eight (8) of the Top 100 newspapers in the world have a load time of five (5) to six (6) seconds. Seven (7) newspaper websites, on the other hand, have a load time of six (6) to seven (7) seconds.

Only two (2) websites have a load time of seven (7) to eight (8) seconds, and five (5) have a load time of eight (8) to nine (9) seconds. Six (6) newspaper websites have a load time of more than nine (9) seconds.

Some of the newspapers in the Bottom 10 category with more than nine (9) seconds load time are the LA Times (9.2 secs), Daily Mail (10.37 secs), Business Standard (11.22 secs), Detroit Free Press (12.04 secs), O Globo (12.97 secs), and Houston Chronicle (15.46 secs).

43. “Headless commerce” has a faster website load time at 35% compared to a “coupled platform” version.

Research revealed that ecommerce websites that run on a back-end platform only (“headless”) perform better than those with a front-end and back-end platform (“coupled”), as per Adobe Business.

Headless commerce has a website load time that is 35% faster than coupled platform commerce websites since the latter needs each platform to constantly communicate via APIs. This is also why headless commerce websites have a higher conversion rate at 25% in 2026 due to their custom checkout.

44. The Top 5 Ecommerce Websites in the World have an average website load time of 1.94 seconds in 2026.

Amazon leads the Ecommerce market not only in revenue and content volume but also in performance. The company ranks #1 in terms of website load time, which was recorded at 1.5 seconds to 1.8 seconds or an average of 1.65 seconds.

Next in line is Temu for having an average load time of 1.9 seconds to 2.4 seconds, eBay with its average load time of 2.0 seconds to 2.4 seconds, and Ozon for its average load time of 2.2 seconds to 2.6 seconds.

AliExpress is at the bottom of the list with an average load time of 2.1 seconds to 2.5 seconds. All of the said ecommerce giants comply with Google’s benchmark of 2.5 seconds across all websites.

The Global Ecommerce market reached US$6.3 T in 2025, funded by 2.7 B online shoppers who generate an average of 2.8% conversion rate and fuel 63% of ecommerce traffic from mobile devices.

45. The average website load time of Shopify stores is 2.1 seconds.

Shopify websites are said to rank #3 in terms of page speed. They have an average load time of 2.1 seconds, which is faster than the 2.8 seconds of Wix websites and the 3.4 seconds of WordPress websites.

However, Shopify websites are relatively slower than Next.js websites and Webflow websites. The latter two websites have a load time of 0.8 seconds and 1.4 seconds, respectively.

Website Load Time Statistics_Los Angeles Times

46. The average website load time of those in the B2B/SaaS industry is 1.15 seconds.

The lightest and fastest websites in terms of industry are those that belong to the business-to-business (B2B) or Software as a Service (SaaS). These websites have an average load time of 1.15 seconds or 0.8 seconds to 1.50 seconds since they use a few media files and are fully optimized for performance.

Blogs/Content websites come next, with an average load time of two (2) seconds or 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. The nature of such websites relies heavily on compressed images, customized fonts, and scripts to make it visually appealing to visitors.

47. Ideally, the average website load time of those in the Media/News industry is 3.25 seconds.

The ideal average load time of Media/News websites is 3.25 seconds or 2.5 seconds to 4.0 seconds. However, the actual average load time of websites in the industry—insofar as the Top 100 newspapers are concerned—is 4.57 seconds.

The reason this occurs is the presence of advertisements, scripts for tracking the effectiveness of advertisements, among others, and the heavy use of highly enticing visuals. Ecommerce/Retail websites are not far behind with an average load time of 2.5 seconds or 2.0 seconds to 3.0 seconds.

48. Mobile website load time is 70.9% slower than desktop versions.

Global data for 2026 show that websites have an average load time of 2.5 seconds on desktop and 8.6 seconds on mobile. Websites viewed on desktop must have a load time of 1.3 seconds and on mobile of 3.2 seconds to be considered top performing.

This translates to a 70.9% gap between the two devices, which is due to the latter using more third-party scripts and large-sized media content like JPEG/PNG. Studies show that WebP media formats load faster by 25% to 35% than JPEG/PNG.

49. Roughly 10% of websites use a CDN to increase their load time.

Hostinger reported that 40 M websites use content data networks (CDN) to speed up load time. Based on DataApplied data, this translates to roughly 10% of websites since there are 400 million active websites in 2026. This is against a global population of 1.98 B websites in existence.

But headless content management systems (CMS) might replace CDNs with adoption rates seen to increase by 100% year-on-year in 2026 from 2.8% to 5.6%. Headless CMS is seen to deliver faster page loads due to its organized architecture, API-first delivery of content, and back-end only framework.

50. Using AI results to slower website load time by 71% compared to hard-coded versions of modern frameworks.

Studies show that only 29% of websites generated by AI builders pass the Core Web Vitals (CWV) guidelines set by Google.

This means that 71% of them have slower loading times due to high largest contentful paint (LCP) values, low interaction to next paint (INP) values, and high cummulative layout shift (CLS) results.

Thus, the average LCP for AI-made websites registered at 3.1 seconds for desktop as against the 2.5-second standard.

51. 62% of mobile websites pass the LCP rate of 2.5 seconds load time.

Data shows that 62% pass the LCP rate of 2.5 seconds, 78% pas the CLS score of 0.1, and 58% pass the INP rate of 200ms. All three metrics comprise the Core Web Vitals, with the INP said to be the hardest metric to achieve.

Interestingly, less than the majority of mobile websites (42%) pass the Core Web Vitals in 2026. Desktop websites are 9 points higher with 51% attaining the passing rate. Across devices, there was a 2.7% year-on-year increase in the number of websites passing CWV in 2026.

Previously, there was a 5.5% year-on-year increase of websites passing CWV in 2025. This means there is a 50.91% decline in the number of websites passing the metric from 2024 to 2026.

Sources used:

DigitalApplied Revenue Impact Report
Reddit Status
Queue IT
Status Cake
DigitalApplied Headless Commerce Report 2026
Adobe Business
Pingdom
Google AI Overview
SearchLab
Contabo
WPRocket
ToolTester
Embryo
SQ Magazine
Hostinger
DigitalApplied Website Statistics
Statista
DebugBear
Web Hosting Buddy
Google PageSpeed Insights
Backlinko
The Three Top Therapy
Unbounce
Google Insights
AdWeek

FAQs

1. What website takes the longest to load?

According to AdWeek, the slowest websites or those that load the longest are news websites because there are too many creative assets in their content. These exclude the advertisement assets that also load slowly. Of the news websites, AdWeek found that the Financial Times was the slowest with 29.5 seconds. Bloomberg follows suit with 27 seconds on average for loading time.

2. What is the average load time of a website?

The average load time of a website is 3.21 seconds as of March 2023. The average Time to First Byte (TTFB) for mobile is 2.594 seconds and for desktop is 1.286 seconds as of October 2019.