Speed is incredibly important for online stores. We want to help store owners choose the fastest possible configuration so we’ve run a thorough speed test for popular WooCommerce themes.
The theme has the strongest impact on page speed. If you choose a slow theme, you’ll be wasting time and money from the very launch of your store.
To fully understand how we tested the themes, read the Testing Methodology section below the results.
Make sure to also check out the speed tests for page builders.
Theme Speed Test Results
Let’s go 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.
| Theme | Version | Requests | Total page size | PageSpeed | YSlow | Fully loaded time (ms) |
| Suki | 1.1.1 | 30 | 334879 | 90 | 73 | 689 |
| Astra | 2.1.2 | 42 | 441472 | 89 | 69 | 729 |
| Woostify | 1.3.6 | 46 | 457700 | 84 | 66 | 808 |
| Retailer | 3.0.0 | 59 | 679968 | 81 | 65 | 987 |
| Ocean | 1.7.1 | 47 | 550645 | 85 | 66 | 995 |
| Flatsome | 3.9.0 | 47 | 896673 | 84 | 68 | 1094 |
| XStore | 6.1.1 | 40 | 622508 | 87 | 70 | 1152 |
| Divi Theme | 4.0.3 | 43 | 646182 | 86 | 69 | 1154 |
| Shopkeeper | 2.9.6 | 65 | 774381 | 76 | 65 | 1270 |
| Storefront | 2.5.3 | 42 | 508060 | 86 | 70 | 1330 |
| Woodmart | 4.1.0 | 55 | 912412 | 85 | 68 | 1551 |
| Porto | 5.0.1 | 67 | 983649 | 83 | 65 | 1599 |
Summary
The fastest theme is Suki, followed closely by Astra. The best five themes all loaded below one second. We were unpleasantly surprised by the poor result of the Storefront theme. More than 1.5 seconds for a base installation is indefensible so we also strongly advise against using the bottom two themes.
If you are looking for a fast theme, any of the top three themes are a great choice.
Here are other details about the test:
- WordPress: 5.2.4
- Date tested: 2019-10-28
The following data is showing the results per page tested.
Homepage Load Time Results
This includes the median average of the homepage.
| Theme | Requests | Total page size | PageSpeed | YSlow | Fully loaded time (ms) |
| Astra | 40 | 549323 | 89 | 70 | 666 |
| Woostify | 48 | 584432 | 84 | 66 | 857 |
| Suki | 32 | 466948 | 89 | 73 | 869 |
| Flatsome | 42 | 972482 | 84 | 69 | 892 |
| Ocean | 45 | 664515 | 85 | 67 | 902 |
| XStore | 39 | 712056 | 86 | 70 | 1004 |
| Retailer | 53 | 743497 | 81 | 65 | 1010 |
| Divi Theme | 43 | 756522 | 86 | 69 | 1163 |
| Shopkeeper | 65 | 875679 | 76 | 65 | 1220 |
| Woodmart | 49 | 957382 | 85 | 68 | 1339 |
| Porto | 61 | 952501 | 82 | 65 | 1342 |
| Storefront | 41 | 629645 | 87 | 71 | 1643 |
Product Page Load Time Results
This includes the median average of the WooCommerce product page.
| Theme | Requests | Total page size | PageSpeed | YSlow | Fully loaded time (ms) |
| Suki | 27 | 202810 | 90 | 72 | 509 |
| Woostify | 44 | 330967 | 84 | 65 | 759 |
| Astra | 43 | 333620 | 88 | 68 | 791 |
| Retailer | 65 | 616438 | 80 | 65 | 964 |
| Storefront | 43 | 386475 | 85 | 68 | 1016 |
| Ocean | 48 | 436774 | 84 | 65 | 1088 |
| Divi Theme | 42 | 535842 | 85 | 68 | 1144 |
| Flatsome | 52 | 820864 | 84 | 67 | 1296 |
| XStore | 41 | 532960 | 87 | 69 | 1300 |
| Shopkeeper | 65 | 673083 | 75 | 65 | 1319 |
| Woodmart | 60 | 867441 | 84 | 67 | 1763 |
| Porto | 73 | 1014796 | 83 | 65 | 1855 |
Shop Page Load Time Results
This includes the median average of the WooCommerce shop page.
| Theme | Requests | Total page size | PageSpeed | YSlow | Fully loaded time (ms) |
| Suki | 28 | 184612 | 92 | 73 | 812 |
| Storefront | 39 | 358846 | 89 | 70 | 818 |
| Divi Theme | 36 | 445849 | 88 | 69 | 822 |
| Woostify | 56 | 397235 | 80 | 66 | 839 |
| Ocean | 55 | 490515 | 87 | 66 | 859 |
| Astra | 49 | 374186 | 91 | 69 | 876 |
| Retailer | 69 | 629360 | 83 | 65 | 904 |
| XStore | 33 | 418154 | 89 | 70 | 940 |
| Shopkeeper | 73 | 686046 | 74 | 65 | 997 |
| Flatsome | 52 | 787155 | 86 | 68 | 1232 |
| Woodmart | 58 | 785323 | 87 | 67 | 1468 |
| Porto | 71 | 809987 | 84 | 65 | 1469 |
Testing Methodology
To make sure the tests are reliable and consistent, we’ve set strict testing criteria.
The stores have had the least amount of plugins installed. Some require a specific page builder. Some require a plugin to get to the basic homepage design we test. We used Gutenberg blocks if the theme did not require a page builder.
| Theme | Required Plugins |
| Astra | Astra Pro |
| Divi Theme | |
| Flatsome | |
| Ocean | |
| Porto | WP Bakery |
| Retailer | Retailer Extender |
| Shopkeeper | Shopkeeper Extender |
| Storefront | Homepage Control |
| Suki | |
| Woodmart | WP Bakery Page Builder, Slider Revolution, Woodmart core |
| Woostify | |
| XStore | WP Bakery, XStore Core, Kirki Customizer Framework, CMB2 |
We created 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 some other 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 hope this test helps you with the selection of the theme for your store!
We’re running these tests regularly and if you want us to include another theme, contact us.
