Troubleshoot website performance issues

If your Webflow website takes longer than two to three seconds to load, there are a number of potential causes. We'll walk through those, and how to solve them here.

• Possibility 1: Webflow service issues
• Possibility 2: Network problems
• Possibility 3: Your website needs optimization

Note

Your sites might not load as expected in China due to an access restriction. Learn more.

Webflow is down

If your Webflow website is behaving strangely, there's a slight chance it could be due to a Webflow service error. The following steps will help you confirm this:

• Check if Webflow is down for everyone or just you
• Check Webflow's status page which monitors all of our services 24/7/365 including our Dashboard, servers, and more. If anything has gone wrong or isn't performing correctly, you'll find details on the incident there.
• Follow and check Webflow's Twitter account for updates on our platform that affect site performance, issues, and more.

Troubleshooting your network connection

Sometimes your website might load slowly because your network connection is slow or intermittent. Below are some ways to test your network connection:

If you're experiencing a network issue, you may have to test your local network/router, contact your internet service provider, or wait until the network connection is resolved.

Try a proxy server or VPN

Proxy servers load your site from a third-party location and usually bypass local network problems. Try loading your site using a proxy server or VPN. If your site loads normally through a proxy server but slowly for you, then you’ve identified a network problem.

International

If you aren't in the Americas, try having someone in the United States or Canada test the website's performance. If it loads fast for them but slow for you, then you’ve identified a network problem.

Contact us

Let us know which site is giving you trouble and we can test it on our end. If the site loads fast for us but slow for you, you’ve most likely got a network problem.

Optimizing your site

Unnecessarily large images, linked assets, third-party plugins, excessive transitions/transforms, excessive interactions and animations, embedded content, etc., can all cause loading issues.

Test your site's load time with a free online website speed test, then follow the steps below if you aren't satisfied with the results.

Optimize large images

Large images are the single most common reason websites perform slowly. Below are some best practices when it comes to images in your Webflow site:

1. Use vector images when possible
2. Compress raster images
3. Use the correct image format (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc.)
4. Keep image display size as close to the image’s natural size as possible

Limit linked elements

Many web pages contain references to elements hosted on external servers, requiring additional time to load through your server and browser. The more linked elements you have (e.g. scripts, images, Twitter feeds, etc), the slower your website.

Try to limit the number of linked elements on your site. If your site is hosted on your own server, upload copies of external content to your server rather than querying a third-party server every time your page loads.

Update, replace, or remove third-party plugins

Plugins can be poorly written, maintained, and even unsupported, causing slow loads. If your plugins are causing your site to load slowly, consider updating them, replacing them with similar plugins that have better ratings for efficiency and speed, or removing them entirely.

Remove unnecessary transitions/transforms

Webflow makes it easy to add CSS transitions and transforms to your site, but you shouldn't overdo it. Only use transitions and transforms that add to the experience. And when adding transitions, only select the properties you wish the transition to affect, rather than all properties.

Remove unnecessary interactions

Each interaction on your site adds a little extra load time. Make sure your site element structure allows you to use the same interaction on multiple elements, avoid using duplicate interactions when possible, and try to only use interactions when they truly add to the experience.