The State of Web Vitals

Shopify image hosting origins and the Core Web Vitals

99.2% of audited sites (8,174) serve images from their own origin (95% good LCP, 1.4s median), 82.0% load images from external domains or CDNs (94% good LCP), and 10.5% inline base64 data-URI images (91% good LCP, 1.5s median).

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites October 2026 edition · Phone field outcomes · Shopify sites only
Shopify Scoped to 8,248 sites out of 203,892 analyzed (cms) Compare with all sites →

99.2% of Shopify sites use same-origin images image hosting origin, and 95% of those sites have a good LCP, against 95% of all Shopify sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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LCP pass rate

Sites with same-origin images image hosting origin have a good LCP most often: 95%, against 95% of all Shopify sites. Sites with inline data-URI images image origin have it least often, at 91%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor LCPMedian
All Shopify sites5,82595%1.4s
Same-origin (self-hosted) 99.2%5,77995%1.4s
Cross-origin / external CDN 82.0%4,89494%1.4s
Inline data: URI images 10.5%66191%1.5s
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Image hosting origin usage

Same-origin images is the most used: 99.2% of Shopify sites.

Sites using each option (sites can use more than one) 8,240 sites
Same-origin (self-hosted) 99.2% Cross-origin / external CDN 82.0%
Same-origin (self-hosted) 99.2% Cross-origin / external CDN 82.0% Inline data: URI images 10.5%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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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: 590 ms median for same-origin images against 759 ms for inline data-URI images. Overall median field LCP is 1.4s for same-origin images (TTFB 401 ms, load delay 590 ms, load duration 206 ms, render delay 312 ms) versus 1.6s for inline data-URI images.

Median LCP phase breakdown (Chrome field p75) Load delay Median LCP
Shopify sites with image hosting origin 5,046402 ms590 ms206 ms312 ms590 mslab 596 ms1.4s
Same-origin (self-hosted) 5,013401 ms590 ms206 ms312 ms590 mslab 596 ms1.4s
Cross-origin / external CDN 4,282409 ms607 ms204 ms333 ms607 mslab 613 ms1.4s
Inline data: URI images 592418 ms759 ms191 ms367 ms759 mslab 772 ms1.6s
TTFB Resource load delay Resource load time Element render delay
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Image hosting origin per framework

Vue sets the image hosting origin to same-origin images on 99% of its sites, and 94% of Vue sites have a good LCP, against 95% of all sites.

FrameworkImage hosting origin on its sitesGood LCP
Shopify sites with image hosting origin 8,240 sitesSame-origin (self-hosted) 99%Cross-origin / external CDN 82%Inline data: URI images 10%95%
Vue 933 sitesSame-origin (self-hosted) 99%Cross-origin / external CDN 93%Inline data: URI images 12%94%
jQuery 3,149 sitesSame-origin (self-hosted) 99%Cross-origin / external CDN 88%Inline data: URI images 17%93%
Same-origin (self-hosted) Cross-origin / external CDN Inline data: URI images
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Image hosting origin or the framework

Does the framework explain the image hosting origin difference?

On jQuery, 93% of sites with same-origin images image hosting origin have a good LCP, against 92% of jQuery sites with cross-origin images. Within jQuery, sites with same-origin images and cross-origin images have a good LCP about equally often. On Vue, 95% of sites with same-origin images image hosting origin have a good LCP, against 94% of Vue sites with cross-origin images. Within Vue, sites with same-origin images and cross-origin images have a good LCP about equally often.

Why base64 inline data-URI images bloat HTML and delay LCP

Serving images from the same origin (99.2% of sites, 8,174) reuses the primary HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection (95% good LCP, 1.4s median). Cross-origin images (82.0%, 94% good LCP) include both dedicated media CDNs and external third-party pixels. Inlining images as base64 data: URIs (10.5% of sites, 865) inflates HTML/CSS byte size by ~33% and blocks the parser, dropping good LCP to 91% (1.5s median).

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Understanding image hosting origins

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, 99.2% use same-origin images (95% good LCP) while 10.5% inline data: URIs (91% good LCP).

Go fix it Optimize images for Core Web Vitals → Third-party domains →
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 5,825 with phone field data · 8,240 sites with image hosting originBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Related signals Bytes by resource type → Images per page → DOM size → Iframes per page → By Arjen Karel · 8,246 crawled Shopify sites (5,825 with phone Chrome field data, 8,240 sites with image hosting origin, October 2026) · How we measured