How do you monitor website performance? Is it monitored? Do you know if your website is getting faster? Slower? Do you know when it falls below critical performance thresholds? Are you receiving automated alerts? Do you even have alerts? If not, you could be. And it won’t cost you a dime to get started.
This post is going to talk about SpeedTracker. SpeedTracker is a free tool that allows you to monitor website performance over time. Use it to visualize your page speed scores, track Lighthouse metrics, receive alerts and even create a public dashboard consisting of multiple websites for quick reference.
Update 19 Nov 2020: The speedtracker website hasn’t received much love over the last four years but the source code and monitoring PWA could still be useful for projects looking to get better insights into page speed than something like uptime.js.org provides.
Companies like Calibre or SpeedCurve offer this as a professional (and far more comprehensive) service, but not everyone can afford them. Whether you’re part of a small company or run a non-profit/open-source project, SpeedTracker can help you keep an eye on the performance of your website for free.
SpeedTracker.org
Getting Started
Getting started with SpeedTracker was as easy as following their Quick Start documentation. They’ve even included a screencast to help you on your journey to page speed perfection: vimeo.com/185952137.
You’ll be up and running in no time.
Measuring Your PWAs
In addition to providing basic website performance testing leveraging the power of WebPageTest, SpeedTracker also provides PageSpeed and Lighthouse metrics.
Now you can really find out if that PWA cuts the mustard. And you won’t need a Chrome extension or separate website checker to find out.
Digital Narcissism
It’s true. Sometimes we just can’t get enough vanity metrics. With SpeedTracker installed it’s quite likely you’re going to need a new Antidote for Digital Narcissism. But who could blame you? I know I won’t.
Looking something more advanced? Check out www.sitespeed.io. Have fun!