Image hosting origins and the Core Web Vitals
85.8% of audited sites (169,369) serve images from their own origin (82% good LCP, 1.5s median), 72.0% load images from external domains or CDNs (82% good LCP), and 15.9% inline base64 data-URI images (79% good LCP, 1.7s median).
85.8% of sites use same-origin images image hosting origin, and 82% of those sites have a good LCP, against 82% of all sites.
LCP pass rate
Sites with same-origin images image hosting origin have a good LCP most often: 82%, against 82% of all sites. Sites with inline data-URI images image origin have it least often, at 79%.
Image hosting origin usage
Same-origin images is the most used: 85.8% of sites.
LCP phase breakdown by image hosting source
Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between same-origin images and inline data-URI images sits in resource load delay: 308 ms median for same-origin images against 382 ms for inline data-URI images. Overall median field LCP is 1.6s for same-origin images (TTFB 691 ms, load delay 308 ms, load duration 144 ms, render delay 228 ms) versus 1.7s for inline data-URI images.
Understanding image hosting origins
Why base64 inline data-URI images bloat HTML and delay LCP
Serving images from the same origin (85.8% of sites, 169,369) reuses the primary HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection (82% good LCP, 1.5s median). Cross-origin images (72.0%, 82% good LCP) include both dedicated media CDNs and external third-party pixels. Inlining images as base64 data: URIs (15.9% of sites, 31,408) inflates HTML/CSS byte size by ~33% and blocks the parser, dropping good LCP to 79% (1.7s median).
Serve images from your primary origin to share the main connection, or add <link rel="preconnect"> if you use a dedicated cross-origin image CDN, and avoid base64 data: URIs for anything larger than tiny CSS icons. Across all audited sites, 85.8% use same-origin images (82% good LCP) while 15.9% inline data: URIs (79% good LCP).
How image hosting origin plays out per platform
What the field data shows when you isolate a single CMS or framework.
WordPress 65,444 sites 98.4% of WordPress sites serve same-origin images (70% good LCP), while 70.0% also load cross-origin images (68%).
Across 65,444 WordPress sites, 98.4% serve images from their own domain (70% good LCP, 1.9s median), 70.0% load cross-origin images (68% good LCP), and 20.6% embed inline base64 data: URIs (68% good LCP).
Shopify 8,567 stores Shopify stores with inline base64 data-URI images (10.5%) pass LCP at 93% vs 96% with same-origin images.
Across 8,567 Shopify storefronts, 99.2% load same-origin images (96% good LCP), 82.0% load cross-origin images (95% good LCP), and 10.5% embed base64 data: URIs (93% good LCP, 1.5s median).
React & Next.js 9,561 sites 93.7% of React & Next.js sites serve images from external image origins (86% good LCP vs 67% self-hosted).
Next.js <Image> supports custom loader functions for external media CDNs. Across 9,561 React sites, 93.7% serve images from external origins (86% good LCP, 1.4s median) and 32.4% serve images from the primary origin (67% good LCP, 2.0s median).
By Arjen Karel · 210,902 crawled sites (196,263 with all devices Chrome field data, 197,455 sites with image hosting origin, October 2026). How we measured.