Troubleshoot website performance issues
Find and fix poor performance issues and slow load times.
Several factors affect site performance and loading times. If your Webflow site takes longer than 2-3 seconds to load, you may be experiencing network connection issues or need to optimize your site. In rare cases, service issues may affect site load times.
Note: Your site may not load as expected in China due to access restrictions.
Webflow service issues
While service issues are rare, they can prevent site visitors from loading your Webflow site. You can check Down for everyone or just me? for Webflow’s current status, or visit our status page, which monitors and reports incident details around the clock for all Webflow services and systems.
Network connection troubleshooting
Slow or intermittent network connection can cause slow load times.
You can troubleshoot your network connection by:
Note: If you’re experiencing a network issue, you can test your local network/router, contact your internet service provider, or wait until the network connection is resolved.
Use 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 virtual private network (VPN). If your site loads normally through a proxy server or VPN but slowly for you, you’ve identified a network problem.
Test your site in the US or Canada
If you aren’t in the US, ask someone in the US or Canada to test your site’s performance. If it loads normally for them but slowly for you, you’ve identified a network problem.
Contact us
Reach out to our support team and let us know which site is giving you trouble. If the site loads normally for us but slowly for you, your local network is likely the problem.
Site optimization
The following factors may contribute to slow loading times and poor site performance:
- Unnecessarily large images
- Linked assets
- Third-party integrations
- Excessive transitions/transforms
- Excessive interactions and animations
- Embedded content
These factors can also increase bandwidth usage.
You can test your site’s load time with a free site speed test and follow the following recommendations to optimize your site:
- Optimize large images
- Limit linked elements
- Update, replace, or remove third-party integrations
- Remove unnecessary transitions/transforms
- Remove unnecessary interactions
Optimize large images
Large images are the most common reason for slow loading times. When using images on your site, follow these best practices:
- Use vector images where possible
- Compress raster images
- Use the correct image format (e.g., jpg, png, gif, etc.)
- Keep image display size as close to the image’s natural size as possible
You can use the site usage dashboard to identify the largest assets consuming the most bandwidth on your site. You can also use our WebP conversion tool to compress assets in the Assets panel.
Limit linked elements
Many web pages contain references to elements hosted on external servers (e.g., scripts, images, social media feeds, etc.), which require additional time to load through your server and browser.
To improve site load times, limit the number of linked elements on your site as much as possible. If you host your Webflow site on your own server, upload copies of external content to your server instead of using a third-party server each time your page loads.
Update, replace, or remove third-party integrations
Third-party integrations and plugins can be poorly written, poorly maintained, and even unsupported. If third-party integrations are causing your site to load slowly, consider updating them, replacing them with similar integrations with better ratings for efficiency and speed, or removing them entirely.
Remove unnecessary transitions/transforms
Use transitions and transforms sparingly on your site only where they can enhance the user experience. Only select the properties you want the transition to affect, rather than all properties.
Remove unnecessary interactions
Each interaction on your site adds load time. Use interactions sparingly on your site only where they can enhance the user experience. Make sure your site element structure allows you to use the same interaction on multiple elements and avoid using duplicate interactions when possible.