Video and audio hosting sources and the Core Web Vitals
Among sites embedding <video> or <audio> media, 34.3% (6,868) stream from dedicated external media CDNs and reach 86% good LCP (1.5s median), while the 67.7% (13,577) serving media directly from their own origin record 84% good LCP (1.5s median).
34.3% of sites use CDN-hosted media video and audio media source, and 86% of those sites have a good LCP, against 86% of all sites.
LCP pass rate
Sites with CDN-hosted media video and audio media source have a good LCP most often: 86%, against 86% of all sites. Sites with self-hosted media media source have it least often, at 84%.
Video and audio media source usage
Self-hosted media is the most used: 67.7% of sites. CDN-hosted media is 34.3% of sites.
LCP phase breakdown by video and audio hosting source
Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between CDN-hosted media and self-hosted media sits in time to first byte (TTFB): 486 ms median for CDN-hosted media against 623 ms for self-hosted media. Overall median field LCP is 1.5s for CDN-hosted media (TTFB 486 ms, load delay 386 ms, load duration 125 ms, render delay 231 ms) versus 1.5s for self-hosted media.
Understanding video and audio hosting sources
Why streaming large video files from the primary origin saturates LCP bandwidth
Unlike small images or fonts, a single hero <video> file often weighs several megabytes. Serving heavy MP4/WebM streams from the same origin (67.7% of media-using sites, 13,577) can saturate origin bandwidth and contend with critical CSS and hero poster images, resulting in 84% good LCP (1.5s median). Offloading video streams to a dedicated media CDN (34.3% of media-using sites, 6,868) lifts good LCP to 86% (1.5s median).
Serve <video> files from a dedicated edge CDN with HTTP range-request streaming, set preload="none" or preload="metadata" on non-hero videos, and provide a lightweight WebP/AVIF poster image for above-the-fold videos. Across all media-using sites, 34.3% use external media CDNs (86% good LCP) versus 67.7% self-hosting on origin (84% good LCP).
How video and audio media source plays out per platform
What the field data shows when you isolate a single CMS or framework.
WordPress 7,948 sites 87.2% of media-using WordPress sites stream video from their own origin (74% good LCP, 1.8s median).
Across 7,948 WordPress sites with <video> or <audio> elements, 87.2% serve media files from their own origin (74% good LCP) and 14.5% serve media from an external CDN (72% good LCP).
Shopify 1,885 stores Shopify stores with video split between first-party paths (58.0%, 97% good LCP) and external CDNs (50.1%, 96%).
Shopify's Liquid video_tag filter outputs HTML <video> tags with HLS and MP4 sources. Across 1,885 media-using Shopify storefronts, 58.0% serve video from their primary domain (97% good LCP, 1.3s median) and 50.1% stream from cross-origin CDNs (96% good LCP, 1.4s median).
React & Next.js 1,840 sites 85.5% of media-using React & Next.js sites stream from external CDNs (86% good LCP vs 69% self-hosted).
Across 1,840 React sites with <video> or <audio> tags, 85.5% serve media from external CDNs (86% good LCP, 1.4s median) and 15.9% serve media from their own origin (69% good LCP, 1.8s median, 17 points apart).
By Arjen Karel · 210,902 crawled sites (69,745 with desktop Chrome field data, 20,046 sites with video and audio media source, October 2026). How we measured.