Why is my website loading or performing slow?

If your Webflow website takes longer than 2-3 seconds to load, you may be experiencing a slow performing website. This could be caused by a number of things and the solutions are outlined in this article.

Step 1. Check for Network Problems

Sometimes your website could load slowly because your network connection is slow or intermittent. Below are some ways to test your network connection:

NOTE: If you confirm that you are experiencing a network issue, you may have to test your local network/router, contact your internet service provider, or wait until the network connection is resolved.

Proxy Server

Proxy servers load your site from a third-party location and usually bypass local network problems. Try loading your site using a free online proxy server. If your site loads normally through a proxy server but slow for you, then you’ve identified a network problem.

International

If you are separated from the United States by either the Atlantic or Pacific ocean, this is likely where a network problem would occur. Try having someone from inside the United States or Canada test the website performance. If it loads fast for them but slow for you, then you’ve identified a network problem.

Contact Us

Let us know which site is giving you trouble and we can test it on our end. If the site loads fast for us but slow for you, you’ve most likely got a network problem.

Step 2. Optimize Your Website

The most common page elements that cause long load times are things like large images, linked assets, third-party plugins, excessive transitions/animations, excessive interactions, embedded content, etc.

Test the load time of your site using a free online website speed test and follow the steps below to troubleshoot some of these issues:

Large Images

Large images are the single most common reason why websites perform slowly. Below are some best practices when it comes to images in your Webflow site. Learn more

Use vector images when possibleUse compressed raster imagesUse the correct image format (.jpg, .png, .gif etc)Keep image display size as close to the image’s natural size as possible

Linked Elements

Many web pages contain references to elements that are hosted on external servers requiring additional time to load through your server and browser. The more linked elements you have (e.g. scripts, images, Twitter feeds, etc) the more your page slows down.Try to limit the amount of linked elements on your site. If your site is hosted on your own server, upload copies of external content to your server rather than querying a third-party server every time your page loads.

Third-party Plugins

Because the coding experience of plugin developers varies greatly, your plugin could be poorly written, maintained, and even unsupported. If your plugins are causing your site to load slowly, consider updating them, replacing them with similar plugins that have better ratings for efficiency and speed, or removing them entirely.

Excessive Transitions/Transforms

Webflow makes it easy to add CSS Transitions and Transforms to your site but this ability can cause unintentional misuse of these animations.When adding transitions, make sure to only select the properties you wish the transition to affect.

Excessive Interactions

Each Webflow Interaction adds a little extra load time and while out interactions are optimized for fast, efficient, and reliable website performance, there is no way to make sure your site is performing optimally if you add too many. Make sure your site element structure allows you to use the same interaction on multiple elements, avoid using duplicate interactions when possible, and try to only use interactions when needed.

Step 3. Webflow Service Issues

If your Webflow website is running slow it may be due to a Webflow service error. The following steps will help you confirm this:

Webflow is Down

A quick way to check if Webflow is down for everyone or just you: https://www.isup.me/webflow.com

Webflow Status

Webflow has a 24/7/365 online status page that monitors all of our services including our Dashboard, servers, and more. If anything goes wrong or does not perform as expected, the details of the incident will be listed here:https://status.webflow.com

Webflow Twitter

You can follow the Webflow Twitter account (@webflowapp) for updates on our platform that affect site performance, issues, and more.