The State of Web Vitals

Shopify HTML CDN delivery and the Core Web Vitals

Direct from origin versus Cloudflare, Fastly, CloudFront, or Akamai: how serving the main HTML document through an edge CDN changes Time to First Byte (384 ms on Cloudflare vs 404 ms from origin) and Largest Contentful Paint.

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

One in five Shopify sites, 18.1%, have no an HTML edge CDN. Of the 81.9% that do, 90% use Cloudflare as, and 97% of those sites have a good LCP, against 96% of all Shopify sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
1

LCP pass rate

Sites with Cloudflare as an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP most often: 97%, against 96% of all Shopify sites. Sites with Fastly as CDN have it least often, at 95%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor LCPMedian
All Shopify sites8,06296%1.3s
Netlify Edge <0.1%1100%1.4s
Cloudflare 73.6%5,93697%1.3s
Akamai 2.0%15696%1.3s
Amazon CloudFront 4.8%38695%1.4s
Fastly 1.4%11995%1.3s
Direct from origin (no CDN) 18.1%1,45493%1.4s
Vercel Edge 0.1%1090%1.4s
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

An HTML edge CDN usage

Four in five Shopify sites uses an HTML edge CDN, and nine in ten of those use Cloudflare as.

All Shopify sites 8,246 sites
Direct from origin (no CDN) 18.1% An HTML edge CDN 81.9%
Sites with an HTML edge CDN 6,755 sites
Cloudflare 89.9%
Cloudflare 89.9% Amazon CloudFront 5.8% Akamai 2.4% Fastly 1.8% Vercel Edge 0.1% Netlify Edge <0.1%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
3

Where an HTML CDN saves time: TTFB and the four LCP phases

Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between Cloudflare as and no sits in resource load delay: 575 ms median for Cloudflare as against 646 ms for no. Overall median field LCP is 1.3s for Cloudflare as (TTFB 384 ms, load delay 575 ms, load duration 211 ms, render delay 290 ms) versus 1.5s for no.

Median LCP phase breakdown (Chrome field p75) Load delay Median LCP
All Shopify sites 6,992389 ms589 ms208 ms298 ms589 mslab 589 ms1.3s
Cloudflare 5,096384 ms575 ms211 ms290 ms575 mslab 575 ms1.3s
Fastly 103381 ms578 ms210 ms255 ms578 mslab 578 ms1.3s
Amazon CloudFront 352405 ms603 ms213 ms331 ms603 mslab 603 ms1.4s
Akamai 144369 ms606 ms174 ms333 ms606 mslab 606 ms1.3s
Direct from origin (no CDN) 1,286404 ms646 ms199 ms321 ms646 mslab 646 ms1.5s
TTFB Resource load delay Resource load time Element render delay
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

An HTML edge CDN per framework

Vue sets the an HTML edge CDN to Cloudflare as on 71% of its sites, and 95% of Vue sites have a good LCP, against 96% of all sites.

FrameworkAn HTML edge CDN on its sitesGood LCP
All Shopify sites 8,246 sitesCloudflare 74%Direct from origin (no CDN) 18%96%
Vue 933 sitesCloudflare 71%Direct from origin (no CDN) 20%95%
jQuery 3,153 sitesCloudflare 69%Direct from origin (no CDN) 21%94%
Cloudflare Direct from origin (no CDN) Amazon CloudFront Akamai Fastly Vercel Edge Netlify Edge
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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HTML edge CDN or the framework

Does the framework explain the an HTML edge CDN difference?

On jQuery, 95% of sites with Cloudflare as an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP, against 92% of jQuery sites without an HTML edge CDN. Within jQuery, sites with and without an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP about equally often.

Why putting the HTML document on an edge CDN cuts TTFB

Static assets like images and scripts are easy to put on a CDN, but the browser cannot discover any of them until the main HTML document arrives. Routing the main domain through an edge network terminates DNS, TCP, and TLS at a point of presence near the visitor, and full-page HTML caching at the edge removes the origin server round trip entirely. In Chrome's field data, serving HTML through Cloudflare cuts median TTFB to 384 ms and Fastly cuts it to 381 ms, compared with 404 ms for documents served directly from the origin.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
6

Understanding HTML document CDN delivery

Serve the main HTML document through an edge CDN and cache anonymous page views at the edge wherever possible. Across the dataset, 18.1% of sites still serve HTML directly from an origin server (93% good LCP, 404 ms median TTFB), while sites on Cloudflare (97% good LCP, 384 ms TTFB) and Fastly (95% good LCP, 381 ms TTFB) start rendering significantly earlier. Even when HTML cannot be cached publicly, edge TLS termination, HTTP/3 support, and tiered origin routing cut connection latency on every navigation.

Go fix it Configure Cloudflare for passing the Core Web Vitals → Time to First Byte → Free website cache warmer →
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · Shopify: 8,246 crawled sites · 8,062 with all devices field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Related signals ETag present → Requests via CDN → HTTP protocol mix → HTTP protocol → By Arjen Karel · 8,246 crawled Shopify sites (8,062 with all devices Chrome field data, October 2026) · How we measured