www.cia.gov speed test — 20 Oct 2026
Measured from the wfix.shop server on 20 October 2026 at 13:46 UTC. Grade B (80/100), with the screenshots, the timings and the fixes that matter.
Where the first byte went
- DNS lookup 52 ms 25%
- TCP connect 30 ms 14%
- Server wait 127 ms 61%
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 first byte arrived in 208 ms. That is workable, and the cheapest win left is caching or a warmer connection.
- The page transfers 2.85 MB over 26 request(s). Images files are 94% of it, so resize and recompress the largest images before anything else.
- The HTML itself arrives gzip-compressed.
- It runs over HTTP/3, so the assets share a connection instead of opening one each.
- The largest element painted at 236 ms, inside the 2.5 s Google calls good.
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.
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. 26 request(s) in total, 2.85 MB across all of them.
Top issues
Image delivery and format
high impact4 image(s) over 200 KB and 6 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.
Total page weight
high impactThe page transfers 2.85 MB across 26 request(s), with the document itself at 95.7 KB.
Fix: Work through the heaviest assets first: images, then fonts, then third-party scripts.
Cache static assets
medium impact23 asset(s) answer without a Cache-Control max-age, so browsers revalidate them on every visit.
Fix: Version filenames on change and serve them with a long max-age plus immutable. That is what makes a returning visitor fast.
Avoid extra redirects
medium impact1 redirect hop(s) before the page load started, each one a full round trip before the first byte.
Fix: Link to the canonical URL (and make sure http, the apex domain and www all point at it) so no visitor pays a redirect first.
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://www.cia.gov/static/6de8017e6860717223c62f26e2db7f18/9466f/hero-ohb-daffodils.jpg | images | 200 | 1.69 s | 489.3 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/67fda24b743cedfd66408e04eebe4656/9466f/hero-OHB-flowers.jpg | images | 200 | 1.52 s | 370.1 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/e579b9ba030345df65e7381c8f235e88/257af/Glyph_Careers_Positive.png | images | 200 | 1.51 s | 9.7 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/6de8017e6860717223c62f26e2db7f18/e70fc/hero-ohb-daffodils.jpg | images | 200 | 1.48 s | 49.3 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/a70df259deaaad2419ce49da6d04ee37/9466f/hero-a-12-final.jpg | images | 200 | 1.44 s | 173.0 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/45ea7dd1005ab17954c801e9575bb7ae/899c3/ohb.jpg | images | 200 | 1.43 s | 90.8 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/4594d96987c6911ba1466b20937e1812/257af/Glyph_Legacy_Negative.png | images | 200 | 1.41 s | 8.1 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/cef0bf6bbf4826dc5e9aaddbbff9d990/bb5d0/Glyphs_Mission_Positive.png | images | 200 | 1.41 s | 1.2 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/e579b9ba030345df65e7381c8f235e88/25ed1/Glyph_Careers_Positive.png | images | 200 | 1.41 s | 2.0 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/57d5b076917927af48aebdf5e4838124/64de9/cia-seal-2661.png | images | 200 | 1.40 s | 35.5 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/24b7fa1828647e7843ed913dfdcaa628/8a549/hero-dcia-potus.jpg | images | 200 | 1.39 s | 235.4 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/67fda24b743cedfd66408e04eebe4656/e70fc/hero-OHB-flowers.jpg | images | 200 | 1.39 s | 27.3 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/2662eea55a23cdea4ce8c6dd6566201b/49949/glyph-stories-positive.png | images | 200 | 1.38 s | 43.1 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/24b7fa1828647e7843ed913dfdcaa628/7284f/hero-dcia-potus.jpg | images | 200 | 1.38 s | 23.8 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/2662eea55a23cdea4ce8c6dd6566201b/98376/glyph-stories-positive.png | images | 200 | 1.38 s | 10.0 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/cef0bf6bbf4826dc5e9aaddbbff9d990/4a72a/Glyphs_Mission_Positive.png | images | 200 | 1.37 s | 4.7 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/a70df259deaaad2419ce49da6d04ee37/e70fc/hero-a-12-final.jpg | images | 200 | 1.37 s | 15.3 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/57d5b076917927af48aebdf5e4838124/04f67/cia-seal-2661.png | images | 200 | 1.34 s | 105.4 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/framework-481beeb6bc5ccc2a4757.js | javascript | 200 | 1.34 s | 44.5 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/4594d96987c6911ba1466b20937e1812/25ed1/Glyph_Legacy_Negative.png | images | 200 | 1.33 s | 1.7 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/45ea7dd1005ab17954c801e9575bb7ae/41aff/ohb.jpg | images | 200 | 1.32 s | 1.01 MB |
| https://www.cia.gov/webpack-runtime-63aee782a24b4c307130.js | javascript | 200 | 1.30 s | 2.6 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/js2/verification.js | javascript | 200 | 1.29 s | 27.4 KB |
| https://www.cia.gov/js2/pubkey.js | javascript | 200 | 1.29 s | 406 B |
| https://www.cia.gov/static/Freedom250seal_Gold-New.svg | images | 200 | 1.27 s | 21.4 KB |
Report this page
Run this test on your own site
The same engine, free, with the screenshots and the fixes. No account needed.