There are many developer oriented tools out there for testing web site performance. Many are free , some are open source , and a few are also subscription based.
If you are not using performance analysis tools for your website, I highly recommend it. Tools are what take something good and make it great.The main thing these tools focus on is page load time and caching performance. Reducing bandwidth also results in cost savings. Many times the ‘problems’ these tools uncover are easy to fix.
YSlow:
The original innovator in this area was YSlow which started in 2007, backed by Yahoo!. YSlow is open source and operates as Chrome and Firefox plugins.
Alternatives to YSlow:
Keep in mind, YSlow runs from your machine, so the effect of any proxies on your network will throw the results. This is where external cloud based tools come in. The following tools do pretty much the same thing as YSlow, looking at site load time, JavaScript/CSS evaluation, use of CDNs, etc.
Pingdom Site Tools:
What I love about this tool is it captures DNS lag time in addition to download and processing time from up to 3 different geographically distant servers. There is a checkbox to make the results private.
Can your Site be Grade A? Click the Image and find out.
Please be aware that the Results may vary for your Website depending on which Platform you use, which Theme is installed, how many Plugins you have installed.
Other Site Analysis Tools:
- http://gtmetrix.com -> Very similar to YSlow and Pingtom Tools
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http://www.webpagetest.org -> More of a network / file size analysis.
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http://www.whichloadsfaster.com/ – pretty fun, does a side by side race of two URLs
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http://www.showslow.com/ – results are generally public but you can download and run this program on your own server if you want. Very useful if you have lots of websites to check and want to automate that process.
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http://www.smallseotools.com/ – A selection of Tools to improve your Website SEO, create Back Links and check misc. Settings.
Going beyond just page load time:
HTML Validator:
- HTML validation should be a pre-commit step.
- I generally use the HTML Validator plugin in Firefox.
- An online version is here: http://validator.w3.org/
Windows 8 ‘compatible websites’:
- Test about the forthcoming IE 11 experience.
- http://www.modern.ie/en-us/report
- This is a relatively new tool by Microsoft with a heavy leaning towards Window 8 support and their own flavor of touch compatibility. If you are explicitly targeting the user experience formerly known as Metro this is the tool.
Complete suite:
- http://www.woorank.com
- Combines site speed test, ranking, SEO evaluation, social media evaluation, HTML validation. Woo is right, but you only get to run one site evaluation per week for free (bah)…
- I’m impressed, but it is expensive if you want to use it past the free Tools.
Other tools I have bookmarked or use on a regular basis:
- http://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html -> If you are getting an SSL warning or something is off with your SSL certificate, this SSL cert checker is very helpful.
- http://dnscheck.pingdom.com/ -> Another one by pingdom to check DNS health.
- http://www.alexa.com/ -> Website ranking site, can be fun / insightful to find out how highly ranked a given site is.
If you need help with any of these Tools or need to act on the Results contact me.