archiveofourown.org speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 12:38 UTC. Grade A (95/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 110 ms 56%
- TCP connect 9 ms 5%
- Server wait 76 ms 39%
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
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 196 ms, which is fast: almost all of the wait is the page itself, not the host.
- The page transfers 169.9 KB over 22 request(s). Javascript files are 74% 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.
- 54% 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 224 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
- The main thread was blocked for 13 ms in total, which is not enough to feel.
Fix first: Render-blocking resources - 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.
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.
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.
Page weight by type
What the page is made of
Transfer size, compressed as sent. 22 request(s) in total, 169.9 KB across all of them.
Top issues
Render-blocking resources
high impact11 render-blocking resource(s) in the document head (1 script(s), 10 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.
Strict-Transport-Security
low impactHSTS is not set, so the first visit on a hostile network can still be downgraded to HTTP.
Fix: Send Strict-Transport-Security with a max-age of at least six months. Add includeSubDomains once every subdomain is HTTPS.
Waterfall
Slowest requests
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
| Request | Type | Status | Time | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/skins/skin_1_default/1_site_screen_.css | css | 200 | 1.53 s | 19.8 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/skins/skin_1_default/6_site_speech_.css | css | 200 | 989 ms | 397 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/skins/skin_1_default/4_site_midsize.handheld_.css | css | 200 | 847 ms | 885 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/application.js | javascript | 200 | 831 ms | 6.9 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/ao3modal.min.js | javascript | 200 | 821 ms | 3.3 KB |
| https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.0/jquery-ui.min.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 820 ms | 58.8 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/jquery.tokeninput.min.js | javascript | 200 | 811 ms | 3.6 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/rails.js | javascript | 200 | 808 ms | 5.6 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/jquery.scrollTo.min.js | javascript | 200 | 797 ms | 1.3 KB |
| https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.0/jquery.min.js 3rd party | javascript | 200 | 794 ms | 32.4 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/skins/skin_1_default/5_site_narrow.handheld_.css | css | 200 | 785 ms | 1.5 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/js.cookie.min.js | javascript | 200 | 781 ms | 909 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/jquery.trap.min.js | javascript | 200 | 778 ms | 857 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/jquery-shuffle.js | javascript | 200 | 773 ms | 371 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/filters.min.js | javascript | 200 | 759 ms | 505 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/bootstrap/bootstrap-dropdown.min.js | javascript | 200 | 746 ms | 775 B |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/livevalidation_standalone.js | javascript | 200 | 743 ms | 9.1 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/images/ao3_logos/logo_42.png | images | 200 | 731 ms | 12.8 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/javascripts/jquery.livequery.min.js | javascript | 200 | 731 ms | 1.0 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/sandbox.css | css | 200 | 730 ms | 1.3 KB |
| https://archiveofourown.org/stylesheets/skins/skin_1_default/7_site_print_.css | css | 200 | 730 ms | 648 B |
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