www.perl.org speed test — 20 Oct 2026

What these numbers mean

• The first byte arrived in 308 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
• The page transfers 229.0 KB over 24 request(s). Javascript files are 63% of it, so defer what is not needed for the first screen, and drop tags nobody uses.
• The HTML itself arrives br-compressed.
• It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
• 99% of the weight comes from other hosts (analytics, fonts, embeds), which also means their slow day becomes your slow day.
• The largest element painted at 664 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
• Layout stayed still (CLS 0.003), so nothing jumps under the reader's cursor.
• The main thread was blocked for 20 ms in total, which is not enough to feel.

Fix first: Cache static assets - Version filenames on change and serve them with a long max-age plus immutable. That is what makes a returning visitor fast.

Read on one shared server, not a visitor's phone: use it to compare pages against each other, not as a promise about every connection. We fix what these tests find.