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Ecommerce Performance

Ecommerce Performance from the Evaluat team: articles on real-browser performance testing and Core Web Vitals.

A headless page load on a timeline. The server response is a small blue slice on the left, where a protocol load test stops timing. The browser render is the long orange slice that follows: download, execute, hydrate, paint. The user's total wait spans the whole timeline, and the page is not usable until the render finishes.

Load testing a headless or Hyvä storefront

Go headless and the browser builds the whole page in JavaScript. Choose Hyvä and you strip that JavaScript back to a thin layer. Either way the customer's wait moves into the render, where a server response time can no longer reach it, and where a protocol load test stops timing. Here is why headless is the cleanest case for measuring render instead of response, and how to test both honestly.

Ahmad Farzan ·

On a Shopify store, the platform sends a cached page fast, but each shopper's browser still has to run the theme, app, and third-party JavaScript, which pushes Core Web Vitals from good toward poor under load.

Why your Shopify store slows down under load

Shopify is hosted, so buyers assume it scales, and its cached storefront genuinely does. The slowdown lives somewhere else: the theme, apps, and third-party JavaScript a merchant adds run in every shopper's own browser, where an HTTP load test never looks. Under load, that is where a Shopify store actually slows. Here is why, and how to see it.

Ahmad Farzan ·

On a WooCommerce store, the cached catalog is served straight from cache, but cart and checkout run the full uncacheable path on every request: WordPress boot, autoloaded options, plugin hooks and queries, a PHP worker, and MySQL.

WooCommerce performance testing: find your store's limit under load

WooCommerce runs your store, which means the slow paths are yours to fix. Its cached catalog flies, but cart, checkout, and my-account run PHP and MySQL on every request, and on budget hosting a thin worker pool caps how many shoppers that path can hold. Here is why it slows under load, and how to test a staging copy.

Ahmad Farzan ·

Sale traffic splits at the full page cache: catalog pages are served from cache, while cart and checkout bypass it and land every click's full work on PHP and MySQL.

Why Magento checkout dies first under load

Every sale, the same picture: the homepage is fast, product pages are fine, and checkout is timing out. That is not bad luck. Magento's cache serves the catalog, but cart and checkout hit PHP and MySQL on every click, exactly where the work is heaviest and hardest to share. Here is why, and how to test for it.

Ahmad Farzan ·