The State of Web Vitals

WordPress video and audio hosting sources and the Core Web Vitals

Among sites embedding <video> or <audio> media, 14.5% (1,117) stream from dedicated external media CDNs and reach 61% good LCP (2.1s median), while the 87.2% (6,698) serving media directly from their own origin record 63% good LCP (2.1s median).

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

87.2% of WordPress sites use self-hosted media video and audio media source, and 63% of those sites have a good LCP, against 70% of all WordPress sites.

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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LCP pass rate

Sites with self-hosted media video and audio media source have a good LCP most often: 63%, against 70% of all WordPress sites. Sites with CDN-hosted media media source have it least often, at 61%.

SitesGood, needs improvement, poor LCPMedian
All WordPress sites36,52470%2.0s
Self-hosted (same origin) 87.2%4,03663%2.1s
External media CDN / host 14.5%68761%2.1s
GoodNeeds improvementPoorSites: with Chrome field data
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Video and audio media source usage

Self-hosted media is the most used: 87.2% of WordPress sites.

Sites using each option (sites can use more than one) 7,684 sites
Self-hosted (same origin) 87.2% External media CDN / host 14.5%
Self-hosted (same origin) 87.2% External media CDN / host 14.5%
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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LCP phase breakdown by video and audio hosting source

Across the four LCP sub-parts in Chrome's field data, the largest gap between self-hosted media and CDN-hosted media sits in time to first byte (TTFB): 1147 ms median for self-hosted media against 1242 ms for CDN-hosted media. Overall median field LCP is 2.1s for self-hosted media (TTFB 1147 ms, load delay 374 ms, load duration 190 ms, render delay 248 ms) versus 2.1s for CDN-hosted media.

Median LCP phase breakdown (Chrome field p75) Load delay Median LCP
WordPress sites with video and audio media source 3,2301153 ms373 ms254 ms373 mslab 363 ms2.1s
External media CDN / host 5171242 ms371 ms291 ms371 mslab 358 ms2.1s
Self-hosted (same origin) 2,7741147 ms374 ms248 ms374 mslab 366 ms2.1s
TTFB Resource load delay Resource load time Element render delay
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Video and audio media source per framework

Vue sets the video and audio media source to self-hosted media on 92% of its sites, and 67% of Vue sites have a good LCP, against 70% of all sites.

FrameworkVideo and audio media source on its sitesGood LCP
WordPress sites with video and audio media source 7,684 sitesSelf-hosted (same origin) 87%External media CDN / host 15%70%
jQuery 7,427 sitesSelf-hosted (same origin) 87%External media CDN / host 15%69%
Vue 786 sitesSelf-hosted (same origin) 92%67%
React 334 sitesSelf-hosted (same origin) 77%External media CDN / host 31%63%
Self-hosted (same origin) External media CDN / host
The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Media hosting source or the framework

Does the framework explain the video and audio media source difference?

On jQuery, 62% of sites with self-hosted media video and audio media source have a good LCP, against 61% of jQuery sites with CDN-hosted media. Within jQuery, sites with self-hosted media and CDN-hosted media have a good LCP about equally often. On React, 62% of sites with self-hosted media video and audio media source have a good LCP, against 64% of React sites with CDN-hosted media. Within React, sites with self-hosted media and CDN-hosted media have a good LCP about equally often.

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 (87.2% of media-using sites, 6,698) can saturate origin bandwidth and contend with critical CSS and hero poster images, resulting in 63% good LCP (2.1s median). Offloading video streams to a dedicated media CDN (14.5% of media-using sites, 1,117) lifts good LCP to 61% (2.1s median).

The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
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Understanding video and audio hosting sources

Offload background MP4/WebM videos to a dedicated media CDN (Cloudflare Stream, Bunny Stream, or Jetpack VideoPress) and always set an optimized poster="" image on <video> tags. On WordPress, 87.2% of media-using sites serve video directly from their origin (63% good LCP, 2.1s median).

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The State of Web Vitals · October 2026 · WordPress: 63,295 crawled sites · 36,524 with phone field data · 7,684 sites with video and audio media sourceBy Arjen Karel · corewebvitals.io/state-of-cwv
Related signals font-display strategy → Preloaded fonts → Uses @import → Stylesheet loading mix → By Arjen Karel · 63,295 crawled WordPress sites (36,524 with phone Chrome field data, 7,684 sites with video and audio media source, October 2026) · How we measured