Building Faster Websites in 2025

## Performance is a feature

Every millisecond you shave off a page load is a small gift to your users. Over the past year our team cut median load time by more than half without a rewrite. Here is what actually moved the needle.

### 1. Ship less JavaScript

The fastest code is code you never send. We audited our bundle, removed three redundant date libraries, and moved analytics to a deferred script. That alone cut 140kb.

### 2. Serve the right image

Modern image formats and responsive sizing are the highest-leverage change most sites can make. Serve WebP or AVIF, size images to their rendered dimensions, and lazy-load anything below the fold.

### 3. Cache aggressively at the edge

Most content does not change on every request. Pushing cached HTML to the edge removed an entire round trip to our origin server for the majority of visits.

### 4. Measure real users, not just lab scores

Synthetic tests are useful, but field data tells you the truth. Watch your Core Web Vitals from real sessions and let that guide priorities.

> Fast sites are not built with one clever trick. They are the result of dozens of small, boring decisions made consistently.

Start with the biggest number in your waterfall and work down. You will be surprised how quickly things improve.