A comparison of the January 2024 core web vitals scores among the leading content management systems (CMS) reveals an overall trend of improvement, with Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix demonstrating the most significant year-over-year growth rates compared to the preceding year.
Core Web Vitals encompass a range of metrics that gauge the speed and performance of a website. The Core Web Vitals Technology Report presents real-world performance scores categorized by CMS. These scores are derived from the Chrome UX Report (CrUX) dataset, which captures actual performance data, and the HTTPArchive dataset, which consists of lab measurements taken on the same websites featured in the CrUX dataset. By combining scores and measurements from both datasets, the Core Web Vitals Technology Report is generated.
This article specifically examines the year-over-year growth rates in core web vitals scores for Drupal, Duda, Joomla, Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress during the months of January in 2024 and 2023.
All performance scores discussed in this article pertain to measurements taken from websites accessed via mobile devices.
The growth rate of improvements between two years is calculated as a percentage of the increase between the values representing the scores of 2023 and 2024. These growth rate percentages were computed using ChatGPT and subsequently double-checked with Google Gemini.
It’s important to note that the growth rate percentages may differ from the absolute differences in rates, which represent the variance between the two years in terms of actual percentage points.
The growth rate formula is expressed like this:
YoY Growth Rates Of Improvement
Squarespace
The year-over-year (YoY) improvement scores demonstrate the rapid pace of enhancement for each CMS.
In the case of Squarespace, the growth rate surged from 34.7% in 2023 to 54% in 2024, marking an impressive 55.62% increase. This indicates a substantial boost compared to the 2023 score. Furthermore, the absolute percentage point difference between 34.7% and 54% stands at 19.3 points, highlighting significant progress.
WordPress – 28.29% Growth Rate
The diligent efforts of the WordPress Performance team, which coordinates performance best practices with the core development team, continue to yield substantial improvements in site performance compared to previous years. Notably, WordPress exhibits the most robust year-over-year performance enhancements among the four CMS compared.
In January 2023, 30.4% of WordPress sites demonstrated good core web vitals performance, whereas in 2024, this figure jumped to 39.0% of sites, reflecting a notable 28.29% increase. The absolute percentage difference between 2023 and 2024 (30.4% vs. 39.0%) amounts to 8.6%, underscoring the significant improvement.
Wix – 19.07% Growth Rate
Claiming second place is Wix. In January 2023, 49.3% of Wix websites boasted a good Core Web Vitals (CWV) score, while in January 2024, this figure rose to 58.7%. This indicates a growth rate of 19.07%, positioning Wix just behind WordPress in terms of rate of increase.
However, the absolute percentage difference for Wix stands at 9.4%, slightly higher than the 8.6% for WordPress.
Joomla – 15.46% Growth Rate
Joomla secures the third spot in year-over-year rate of growth. The percentage of Joomla sites with passing Core Web Vitals scores stood at 40.1% in 2023 and increased to 46.3% in 2024.
This represents a growth rate percentage of 15.46%, trailing just behind Wix.
In terms of absolute percentage difference, there’s a 6.2 percentage point increase between 2023 and 2024 for Joomla.
Drupal – 10.78% Growth Rate
The open-source CMS platform Drupal secured the fourth position with a growth rate of 10.78% and an absolute percentage point difference of 5.5%.
Duda – 7.50% Growth Rate
Ranked fifth in the rate of growth from 2023 to 2024 is Duda. The percentage increase from 2023 (70.7% passing CWV) to 2024 (76.0%) stands at 7.50%.
A potential explanation for the slower rate of growth could be attributed to the exceptionally high core web vitals scores of websites created using the Duda platform, which are the highest among all the platforms in this comparison.
Despite the outstanding number of Duda-built sites passing the core web vitals measurements, Duda still managed to enhance their scores year over year.
Changes In Number Of Measured Sites
A fascinating turn in Drupal’s scores is that the higher scores in 2024 stem from a smaller pool of measured websites. In 2024, approximately 129,000 Drupal sites were measured, whereas there were 147,000 in 2023.
This trend aligns with usage statistics reported on Drupal.org, indicating a year-over-year decrease in usage from 981,659 sites in 2023 to 795,595 sites in 2024, marking a significant decline of 186,064 Drupal websites.
Similarly, WordPress scores were derived from a slightly reduced number of measured sites, with a variance of 20,368 measured WordPress websites.
Joomla saw a decline of 30,243 measured websites, while the number of measured Duda sites remained steady, experiencing only a minor decrease of 52 measured websites.
Among the platforms analyzed, Wix and Squarespace were the sole ones to observe an increase in the number of sites measured between 2023 and 2024, as indicated by the Core Web Vitals Technology report.
Top Core Web Vitals Champions
Despite WordPress experiencing the highest growth rate among the six content management systems according to the Core Web Vitals Technology report, the actual top performers are arranged differently, with Duda maintaining its position as the leader in core web vitals scores.
Here’s the ranking of the top CMS based on Core Web Vitals Scores:
- Duda: 76.03%
- Wix: 58.75%
- Drupal: 56.5%
- Squarespace: 53.97%
- Joomla: 46.26%
- WordPress: 39.02%
Although WordPress has the lowest number of websites passing the core web vitals criteria, the growth rate statistics indicate significant improvement. This is a noteworthy achievement, particularly considering the vast array of third-party themes and plugins that may not be optimized for page speed.
Original news from SearchEngineJournal