www.ted.com speed test — 20 Oct 2026

Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 12:29 UTC. Grade C (72/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.

https://www.ted.com/

20 October 2026 at 12:29 UTC · Free test · report pt_a6078541c9dd
Grade
C
72/100
Performance75/100
Structure67/100

9 audit(s) passed, 7 need work

First byte (TTFB)163 msmeasured from this server
Fully loaded1.31 sfirst byte + slowest asset
Requests26document + assets
Page weight7.80 MBcompressed transfer
HTML document100.4 KBbr
ProtocolHTTP/3nginx/1.27.5
Third-party7.70 MBother hosts

Where the first byte went

  • DNS lookup 47 ms 29%
  • TCP connect 31 ms 19%
  • Server wait 85 ms 52%

Measured on the connection that fetched the HTML. Every other request on the page waits for the end of this bar before it can start.

How this page compares

First bytefaster than 97% of 4,999 pages tested here163 ms against a median of 449 ms
Page weightheavier than 96% of 4,999 pages tested here7.80 MB against a median of 650.3 KB
Fully loadedfaster than 82% of 4,999 pages tested here1.31 s against a median of 1.84 s
Requestssends more requests than 100% of 4,999 pages tested here26 against a median of 26

Every report published here is in this comparison, so it is a reference population of pages tested from one server - not a benchmark of the whole web.

What these numbers mean

  • The server answered in 163 ms, which is fast: almost all of the wait is the page itself, not the host.
  • The page transfers 7.80 MB over 26 request(s). Images files are 96% of it, so resize and recompress the largest images before anything else.
  • 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 308 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 730 ms, so taps and scrolling wait while scripts run.

Fix first: Image delivery and format - Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG fallback, size images to the space they occupy, and lazy-load anything below the fold. Images are usually more than half of a slow page.

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.

Screenshot

What the page looks like

Loaded in headless Chromium on this server. Click an image to open it full size.

Desktop screenshot of www.ted.com
Desktop 1366 × 768 · 550.3 KB · page is 6000 px tall
Mobile screenshot of www.ted.com
Mobile 390 × 844 · 228.2 KB · page is 6000 px tall

Browser render

The same URL loaded in a real browser, so these are the readings curl cannot produce. The grade above is still built from the server measurements.

Largest contentful paint308 msgood is under 2.5 s
Cumulative layout shift0.003under 0.1 is stable
Total blocking time730 mslong tasks during load
First contentful paint292 msfirst content on screen
Browser page weight5.15 MB214 request(s), scripts included
Failed requests1blocked or unreachable
Largest contentful paint308 ms
Goodgood under 2.5 s, poor over 4 s
Cumulative layout shift0.003
Goodgood under 0.1, poor over 0.25
Total blocking time730 ms
Poorgood under 200 ms, poor over 600 ms

Page weight by type

What the page is made of

Images 24 requests
7.48 MB 96%
Javascript 1 request
229.9 KB 3%

Transfer size, compressed as sent. 26 request(s) in total, 7.80 MB across all of them.

Top issues

Image delivery and format

high impact

8 image(s) over 200 KB and 8 large image(s) still served as JPEG or PNG.

Fix: Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG fallback, size images to the space they occupy, and lazy-load anything below the fold. Images are usually more than half of a slow page.

Render-blocking resources

high impact

6 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (0 script(s), 6 stylesheet(s)). The page cannot paint until each one arrives.

Fix: Add defer or async to scripts that do not change the first paint, inline the critical CSS, and load the rest with media="print" plus an onload swap.

Total page weight

high impact

The page transfers 7.80 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 100.4 KB.

Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.

Third-party weight

medium impact

2 third-party host(s) serve 7.70 MB of this page. Each one is another DNS lookup, TLS handshake and point of failure you do not control.

Fix: Self-host the libraries you can, drop the tags you cannot justify, and preconnect the ones you keep.

HTML document size

medium impact

The document transfers 100.4 KB. A bloated document delays every other request, because nothing else can start until it is parsed.

Fix: Paginate long listings, move repeated markup into a template, and stop inlining large data URIs into the HTML.

Waterfall

Slowest requests

IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.15 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/news…
1.14 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.14 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.13 s
JAVASCRIPTcdn.yourbow.com/ted/hbyb.js
1.12 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.12 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/images.prismic.io/tedconf/taNetUabyf…
1.12 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.12 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.12 s
IMAGESpi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pro…
1.12 s

Each bar is one request's own response time, scaled to the slowest. Assets were fetched in parallel, so the bars overlap in real time rather than stacking. first party third party

RequestTypeStatusTimeSize
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_188341/9288e4c3-45bf-4463-bd43-691286c5c883/AmyCuddy_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.15 s6.6 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_rec.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.14 s11.0 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_186364/8d303afb-df1b-40c3-a451-cb46dd3690e7/MASVocal_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.14 s859.2 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_189894/e505893d-6bc0-46f3-86c4-bbfb52fa5536/ReginaldDwayneBetts_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.13 s637.1 KB
https://cdn.yourbow.com/ted/hbyb.js 3rd partyjavascript2001.12 s229.9 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_188341/9288e4c3-45bf-4463-bd43-691286c5c883/AmyCuddy_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.12 s578.9 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/images.prismic.io/tedconf/taNetUabyf9ywAEK_TED_Spotlight.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.12 s3.20 MB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_189894/92000c36-2cff-481f-b5a1-5f793f1919fb/ReginaldDwayneBetts_2026-embed.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=384 3rd partyimages2001.12 s13.4 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_189894/92000c36-2cff-481f-b5a1-5f793f1919fb/ReginaldDwayneBetts_2026-embed.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.12 s655.5 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_186364/8d303afb-df1b-40c3-a451-cb46dd3690e7/MASVocal_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.12 s14.2 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_188342/eb12f891-307e-4d95-a708-0a0a6cea674d/PaulBloom_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.10 s483.8 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_189894/e505893d-6bc0-46f3-86c4-bbfb52fa5536/ReginaldDwayneBetts_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.10 s9.7 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_tdd.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.10 s10.5 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-photos.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/140d8592-bbfb-416e-9af9-2e812b86ff3b/RajPanjabi_2018-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.09 s388.6 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/images.prismic.io/tedconf/taNetUabyf9ywAEK_TED_Spotlight.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.09 s54.0 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_talks_business.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.09 s31.0 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/images.prismic.io/tedconf/ZoaudR5LeNNTwy-6_Imagearea.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.08 s62.3 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_rec.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.08 s15.1 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/ted-conferences-general-web-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_talks_tech.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.08 s9.9 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_tdd.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.08 s13.5 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/production/talks/talk_188342/eb12f891-307e-4d95-a708-0a0a6cea674d/PaulBloom_2026-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.07 s10.5 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/pl.tedcdn.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_talks_business.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.07 s24.5 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/images.prismic.io/tedconf/ZoaudR5LeNNTwy-6_Imagearea.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.07 s473.8 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/ted-conferences-general-web-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/newsletter_assets/newsletter_ted_talks_tech.png?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=3840 3rd partyimages2001.07 s10.1 KB
https://pi.tedcdn.com/r/talkstar-photos.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/140d8592-bbfb-416e-9af9-2e812b86ff3b/RajPanjabi_2018-stageshot.jpg?u%5Br%5D=2&u%5Bs%5D=0.5&u%5Ba%5D=0.8&u%5Bt%5D=0.03&quality=80&w=256 3rd partyimages2001.06 s10.4 KB
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