The State of Web Vitals

WordPress 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 (1023 ms on Cloudflare vs 989 ms from origin) and Largest Contentful Paint.

Field data PhoneDesktopAll Scope All sites October 2026 edition · Desktop field outcomes · WordPress sites only
WordPress Scoped to 63,295 sites out of 203,892 analyzed (cms) Compare with all sites →

86.1% of WordPress sites have no an HTML edge CDN. Of the 13.9% that do, 15% use Akamai as, and 79% of those sites have a good LCP, against 76% of all WordPress sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
1

LCP pass rate

Sites with Akamai as an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP most often: 79%, against 76% of all WordPress sites. Sites with Fastly as CDN have it least often, at 72%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor LCPMedian
All WordPress sites17,00576%1.7s
Netlify Edge <0.1%2100%915ms
Akamai 2.1%60879%1.6s
Cloudflare 8.4%2,14477%1.7s
Direct from origin (no CDN) 86.1%13,41676%1.7s
Amazon CloudFront 1.9%50172%2.0s
Fastly 1.4%31372%1.8s
Vercel Edge 0.1%2170%2.0s
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
2

An HTML edge CDN usage

13.9% of WordPress sites use an HTML edge CDN, and three in five of those use Cloudflare as. Akamai as is 15% of the sites with CDN, 2.1% of all WordPress sites.

All WordPress sites 63,295 sites
Direct from origin (no CDN) 86.1% An HTML edge CDN 13.9%
Sites with an HTML edge CDN 8,824 sites
Cloudflare 60.3% Akamai 15.3% Amazon CloudFront 13.9%
Cloudflare 60.3% Akamai 15.3% Amazon CloudFront 13.9% Fastly 9.9% Vercel Edge 0.4% Netlify Edge 0.1%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop 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 Akamai as and no sits in resource load delay: 247 ms median for Akamai as against 289 ms for no. Overall median field LCP is 1.7s for Akamai as (TTFB 991 ms, load delay 247 ms, load duration 111 ms, render delay 224 ms) versus 1.7s for no.

Median LCP phase breakdown (Chrome field p75) Load delay Median LCP
All WordPress sites 11,805999 ms289 ms219 ms289 mslab 330 ms1.8s
Akamai 453991 ms247 ms224 ms247 mslab 301 ms1.7s
Fastly 2281068 ms287 ms255 ms287 mslab 314 ms1.9s
Direct from origin (no CDN) 9,220989 ms289 ms215 ms289 mslab 331 ms1.7s
Cloudflare 1,5321023 ms293 ms229 ms293 mslab 332 ms1.8s
Amazon CloudFront 3551127 ms316 ms236 ms316 mslab 343 ms2.0s
TTFB Resource load delay Resource load time Element render delay
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
4

An HTML edge CDN per framework

On jQuery, 86% of sites use no an HTML edge CDN, and 75% of jQuery sites have a good LCP, against 76% of all sites. On Vue, 87% of sites use no, and 75% of Vue sites have a good LCP.

FrameworkAn HTML edge CDN on its sitesGood LCP
All WordPress sites 63,295 sitesDirect from origin (no CDN) 86%76%
Alpine 380 sitesDirect from origin (no CDN) 78%Cloudflare 14%82%
jQuery 60,314 sitesDirect from origin (no CDN) 86%75%
Vue 4,844 sitesDirect from origin (no CDN) 87%75%
React 2,233 sitesDirect from origin (no CDN) 82%66%
Direct from origin (no CDN) Cloudflare Akamai Amazon CloudFront Fastly Vercel Edge Netlify Edge
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
5

HTML edge CDN or the framework

Does the framework explain the an HTML edge CDN difference?

On jQuery, 79% of sites with Akamai as an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP, against 75% of jQuery sites with no. Within jQuery, sites with Akamai as and no have a good LCP about equally often. On Vue, 75% of sites with no an HTML edge CDN have a good LCP, against 68% of Vue sites with Cloudflare as. Within Vue, sites with no and Cloudflare as 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 1023 ms and Fastly cuts it to 1068 ms, compared with 989 ms for documents served directly from the origin.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
6

Understanding HTML document CDN delivery

Put your WordPress domain behind an edge CDN and enable full-page HTML caching for anonymous visitors. Right now 86.1% of WordPress sites serve their HTML directly from the origin server (76% good LCP, 989 ms median TTFB). Proxying HTML without caching only saves TLS handshake time; combining Cloudflare APO or Cache Rules with proper cache-bypass rules for logged-in users and WooCommerce carts serves the document straight from the edge.

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 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 17,005 with desktop field dataBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Related signals ETag present → Requests via CDN → HTTP protocol mix → HTTP protocol → By Arjen Karel · 63,295 crawled WordPress sites (17,005 with desktop Chrome field data, October 2026) · How we measured