The fastest WooCommerce page builder (speed test)

Speed is of the utmost importance for eCommerce sites, and we want to help users of WooCommerce find the fastest page builder for their store.

The same way themes affect the page speed, page builders do as well.

To fully understand how we tested the page builders, read the Testing Methodology section below the results.

Page Builder Speed Test Results

Let’s jump straight to the results. Results are median average, and in all cases but PageSpeed and YSlow score, the lowest is best.

Overall Results

This includes the median average of all tested subpages.

Page Builder	Version	Requests	Total page size	PageSpeed	YSlow	Fully loaded time (ms)
Beaver Builder	2.2.4.3	47	578,980	96	76	1005
Gutenberg	5.2.3 (WP)	41	542,017	96	76	1080
WP Bakery	6.0.5	49	585,468	94	74	1163
Visual Composer	19.0.0	51	576,955	94	75	1218
Divi	2.0.0	53	764,507	93	71	1232
Elementor	2.7.1	48	413,662	96	77	1817

Summary

The fastest page builder tested is Beaver Builder. That said, all other page builders, except Elementor, are within a 20% range of the best fully loaded time.

When looking at other Page Builder reviews, Beaver Builder is one of the most praised page builders for ease of use and features. We’re adding praise for page speed!

If you’re looking for a fast page builder for your WooCommerce store, Beaver Builder should be your choice.

Here are other details about the test:

• WordPress: 5.2.3
• Astra Theme: 2.0.1
• Date tested: 2019-09-12

The following data is showing the results per page tested.

Homepage Load Time Results

This includes the median average of the homepage.

Page Builder	Requests	Total page size	PageSpeed	YSlow	Fully loaded time (ms)
Beaver Builder	52	809,852	96	75	934
Gutenberg	39	714,868	96	76	993
Divi	59	1,050,556	92	70	1150
WP Bakery	56	849,266	92	72	1163
Visual Composer	59	810,200	92	73	1334
Elementor	54	468,751	95	77	1917

Product Page Load Time Results

This includes the median average of the product page.

Page Builder	Requests	Total page size	PageSpeed	YSlow	Fully loaded time (ms)
Beaver Builder	42	348,108	96	76	1076
Visual Composer	42	343,710	96	76	1101
WP Bakery	41	321,669	96	76	1163
Gutenberg	42	369,165	96	76	1166
Divi	47	478,457	94	72	1313
Elementor	41	358,573	96	76	1717

Shop Page Load Time Results

This includes the median average of the shop page.

Page Builder	Requests	Total page size	PageSpeed	YSlow	Fully loaded time (ms)
Gutenberg	48	371,539	98	81	916
WP Bakery	48	363,441	98	81	971
Divi	53	492,544	96	5377	991
Visual Composer	49	367,142	98	81	1098
Beaver Builder	48	363,023	98	81	1106
Elementor	48	371,622	98	81	1776

Testing Methodology

To make sure the tests are reliable and consistent, we’ve set strict testing criteria.

We use the free Astra theme. Page builders are used to create the homepage with the same sections – above the fold with image, three images for categories, featured products, and a text FAQ section.

Stores are hosted on WooCart hosting on Google Cloud Platform. There is no CDN running on the stores. Caching is enabled.

All stores have the same plugins installed: WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, SendGrid, and Redis Object Cache.

Stores have been set up with the WooCart Turnkey store settings. This gives all stores 35 demo products, 81 images for the products and homepage, and subpages for contact, about and legal.

Speed Testing

The speed testing service is GT Metrix. The test location is London (UK), and the browser is Chrome (desktop). We use their API, and run all tests in the same batch.

We run the tests five times per each page: homepage, product page, and shop page. The pages are mixed when testing so there are no consecutive tests for the same page builder.

We calculate the median result of the page load times.

Why median?

We calculate the median because it is far better than average for the use case of page speed testing. This way, the outliers have less effect on the final result, making the test more relevant. You can read more about this topic in this blog post.

If you’re interested in the full test data, take a look at the full spreadsheet.

Conclusion

We really hope this helped you with the selection of the page builder for your WooCommerce store!

We’re running these tests regularly and if you want us to include another page builder, contact us.