A faster Magento shop, measured.

We find out where the time goes, fix it and show what it changed with measurements before and after.

A page that waits costs customers.

A visitor who clicks a category and sees nothing happen goes back. Google sees that too, and counts the speed of your pages in the order of its search results.

Magento can be fast. But it has many moving parts, and every module, script and setting can cost time somewhere. We find out where, with measurements rather than hunches.

Where the time goes.

These are the causes we see most often in Magento shops. Usually it is a few of them at once.

The page cache is left out: Varnish should serve most pages ready-made. One module that marks a page as personal, and every visitor to that page goes through PHP and the database. It is a well-known cause, and usually the quickest win.
Cron and indexers fall behind: If the indexers recalculate on every change or cron does not run properly, the admin gets slow and prices and stock fall behind. We set the indexers to update on schedule and measure whether cron keeps up.
Modules that do too much: An observer or plugin that calls an external service or runs a heavy query on every page. We measure what each module costs and discuss what can go, what should change and what we would be better off building ourselves.
Too much JavaScript: Magento’s default theme loads a lot of scripts. Bundling, deferring what is not needed straight away and removing what nobody uses all help. Sometimes a lighter theme such as Hyvä is the biggest step; then we say so plainly, with what it costs.
Images: Product photos in the wrong size or an old format. We deliver them as WebP or AVIF, in the size the screen asks for, and only load what comes into view.
The database: Magento keeps a lot that is no longer needed after a while: old baskets, logs, expired sessions. Those tables grow quietly. We clean them up and track down the slow queries.
The hosting itself: Too few PHP processes, no OPcache, or a search engine running somewhere other than the shop. If we host the shop, we fix that on the server. If you host elsewhere, we tell you what needs to change.

How we measure

Per page type

The homepage, a category, a product, the basket and the checkout. A fast homepage means little if the checkout is slow.

Server and browser separately

How long the server takes before it starts to answer, and what the browser still has to do after that. That tells you whether the problem is in Magento or in what is sent to the visitor.

Lab and real visitors

Measurements in a test environment can be repeated; the figures from real visitors in Google are what counts. We use both, and tell you when your shop does not have enough real measurements yet.

Before and after

We measure every change again, on the same pages. What does not help, we roll back. You get the measurements themselves, with our explanation.

Findability too.

Speed is one part. A Magento shop with several languages or store views also needs correct canonical and hreflang settings, structured product data and a sitemap that adds up.

We cover that in the same review, along with findability in AI search engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.

About websites and findability

Questions

Why is my Magento shop slow?

Usually through a mix of a page cache that does not do its job, heavy modules, too much JavaScript and hosting that is not set up for Magento. Which of the four weighs most differs per shop. That is why we measure first, per page type, before we change anything.

What are Core Web Vitals and why do they matter?

Core Web Vitals are three measurements by Google: how quickly the largest element appears (LCP), how quickly the page responds to a click (INP) and whether the layout shifts while loading (CLS). Google uses them when ordering search results, and visitors leave sooner on a page that scores badly.

How do you show what the optimisation achieved?

With the same measurements before and after, on the same pages: the homepage, a category, a product, the basket and the checkout. We measure the server’s waiting time, the Core Web Vitals in a test environment and, where Google has seen enough visitors, the figures from real visitors. You get the measurements themselves, with our conclusion.

Do we need to move to Hyvä to get faster?

Not always. Hyvä is a frontend theme for Magento that loads far less JavaScript than the default theme, and that often makes a big difference. But switching also means your theme and some of your modules get rebuilt. First we take the gains that need no new theme; then we look at whether Hyvä is worth the rest.

Can you improve speed if we host somewhere else?

Yes. Most of the work is in Magento, the modules and the theme, and that can be done with any host. If part of the problem is in the server, we write down what your host needs to change. If you would rather move the hosting to us as well, you can, but you do not have to.

From the knowledge base

Why is my Magento store slow?

The causes we find most often when a Magento shop is slow, from page cache to product photos, and why you measure first.

More about Magento

Tell us what you run.

An introduction costs nothing. You talk straight away to one of the two people who will actually do the work.

Get in touch

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