With Core Web Vitals settling in around the world, and with content management systems adapting to Google’s new benchmarks, new research from HTTP Archive outlines the performances of major CMS platforms.
Its report measured the mobile scores of each platform and took data from two sources: the CRuX dataset as well as the HTTP Archive Lab Web Technology Detections dataset.
Its headline finding was the dramatic improvements witnessed among platforms like Wix and Duda in contrast to the sluggish improvements of the CMS heavyweight WordPress.
A complacent WordPress?
It was long ago that WordPress sat comfortably at the top of the CMS world – and they still do! The competition was so distant that it needn’t look below them.
Yet this is rumbling from below and the CMS competition is elevating standards and WordPress now has a firm eye on who is coming up – Wix, Weebly, Drupal, and Duda.
Well, there is no Duda that the CMS has been focusing on building better Core Web Vitals to attract more customers.
WordPress versus Duda
The analysis paired WordPress and Duda in order to compare the two content management systems.
Duda is a website-building platform that is used by web professionals. Like WordPress, it lets users greatly modify the code. Yet with Duda, it maintains control over the underlying tech in order to ensure high performance.
It is this control mechanism that lets Duda’s development team concentrate on features that users want to see, such as fast site speed.
According to the data, 69.3% of websites that are built on the Duda platform have a good Core Web Vitals score. That is a remarkable improvement, given that its scores at the beginning of 2021 was just 29.4%.
In comparison, WordPress began this year with a good Core Web Vitals score of 18.4%. Its latest scores showed little improvement, increasing to 31%.
So at the beginning of 2021, Duda’s performance led by 11% yet widened to an eye-watering 38%. 
Why is Duda accelerating from WordPress?
Over the year Duda has been gradually and steadily improving their Core Web Vitals scores, yet around the summertime, their scores rocketed.
“It started by understanding that this is a very important topic for our customers,” a Duda spokesperson said to Search Engine Journal, “and therefore we assembled a task force with the goal to be the #1 CMS with CWV scores.
“We took a very data driven approach. We installed the Google CWV library on all of our sites and sent the collected data to our business intelligence (BI) tool used to visualize data.
“Then we had information of CWV performance over time that we could filter according to different parameters like the template type, the account (we have large partners with many thousands of sites on the platform), the geo, site features that were used and more.”
After that: “Using this data driven approach we were able to identify opportunities for improvements. We implemented those improvements and checked the improvement again using our BI tool. This was a successful iterative approach that helped us to increase scores over time.”
Of the Core Web Vitals that had their attention, it was the Cumulative Layout Shift that was causing them an issue.
How did Duda improve their Cumulative Layout Shift scores? “Heavily used third-party apps caused large Cumulative Layout Shifts,” added its spokesperson. “We worked with those app developers to optimize their apps. CLS is frequently caused by delayed loading of Google Fonts. We fixed it by inlining the Google fonts necessary for displaying content above the fold.
“We discovered that images with no proper width/height attributes were causing CLS. We added relational attributes to any image. We found out that some partners built custom widgets that are loaded in JavaScript and causing CLS. We worked with those partners to write the widget in the correct way.”
By taking a proactive approach to Core Web Vitals, identifying weak points, and then working to solve issues and enhance their experience, Duda managed to succeed, and even beat WordPress – in terms of better Core Web Vitals.
PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Core Web Vitals specialists. Contact us to see how we can work together.
