Last updated: February 2023
Every couple of years we publish an updated list of essential web design benchmarking and testing tools that we think are the most useful at measuring various metrics.
Some of these tools drop in popularity in our list, and some new services and tools pop up too. Here’s our updated list of essential web design performance and SEO benchmark tools.
GTmetrix – gtmetrix.com
GTmetrix offers very powerful website performance testing, for free, without even needing to register!
If you do want to create a free account, you get access to higher test counts and priority queuing. In all the years we’ve been using GTmetrix, we’ve never had issues with the free tier and use it very consistently.
GTmetrix tests return results similar to Google’s PageSpeed Insights, and that’s because they also make use of Lighthouse to measure website quality metrics.
KeyCDN Tools – tools.keycdn.com/speed
Provides all sorts of performance metrics such as a speed test, performance test (TTFB, connection delay, DNS delay, etc.) as well/
WebPageTest – webpagetest.com
Run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the globe using real browsers (IE and Chrome) and at real consumer connection speeds.
PageSpeed Insights – google.com
Google has put an emphasis on page loading speed as part of their ranking metrics. PageSpeed Insights analyzes your site and provides feedback on optimizations to help your site load faster.
SEO Site Checkup – seositecheckup.com
Use this service for a comprehensive SEO scan of your website. Although SEO Site Checkup’s services are not free, you are entitled to one free site scan before being put on a timeout.
Website Speed Test – pingdom.com
Pingdom’s Website Speed Test utility will allow you to test the loading speed of your site various datacenters across the world. We wish there were more testing points (e.g. Canadian!) to better test regional load times, but we can’t complain!