The scores are the percentage of pages that provide a good INP experience. WP Engine is back on top for INP but the other five web hosts are not far behind.
INP Scores In Descending Order
WP Engine 95%
SiteGround 94%
Bluehost 92%
GoDaddy 90%
HostGator 89%
IONOS 88%
Lighthouse Performance Score
Lighthouse is an open source auditing tool that scores web pages for performance, SEO, and other metrics. The performance scores for the six web hosts are fairly close to each, clustering on either side of a performance score of 40.
This is HTTPArchive’s description of this score:
“In general, only metrics contribute to your Lighthouse Performance score, not the results of Opportunities or Diagnostics.”
Interestingly, HostGator ranks the highest for the Lighthouse Performance score, with GoDaddy and Ionos tied for second place. The other three were tied for third place, by one point less than the second place. Nevertheless, HostGator was the clear winner for the Lighthouse Performance score metric.
Lighthouse Performance Scores
HostGator 43
GoDaddy 40
IONOS 40
Bluehost 39
SiteGround 39
WP Engine 39
HostGator came out near the top for Core Web Vitals and scores at the top of the list for the Lighthouse Performance metric. WP Engine is clustered with two other web hosts scoring 39 points.
Lighthouse Accessibility Scores
The accessibility scores are clustered similarly to the performance scores, on either side of a score of 85.
This is how HTTPArchive describes this metric:
“The Lighthouse Accessibility score is a weighted average of all accessibility audits. Weighting is based on axe user impact assessments. Each accessibility audit is pass or fail. Unlike the Performance audits, a page doesn’t get points for partially passing an accessibility audit.”
Accessibility Scores In Descending Order
GoDaddy 87
Bluehost 86
WP Engine 86
SiteGround 86
HostGator 85
Ionos 85
Lighthouse SEO Scores
The SEO scores were even more tightly clustered, with GoDaddy scoring the highest of the six web hosts under comparison.
HTTPArchive describes what the SEO Score is measuring:
“These checks ensure that your page is following basic search engine optimization advice. There are many additional factors Lighthouse does not score here that may affect your search ranking, including performance on Core Web Vitals.”
SEO Scores In Descending Order:
GoDaddy 91
Bluehost 88
WP Engine 88
HostGator 88
IONOS 88
SiteGround 88
Lighthouse Best Practices Score
The last score is interesting because it measures if the hosted sites are created with web development best practices. HTTPArchive doesn’t explain at this time what those best practices are.
Here’s the description of this score:
“This ensures that your page is built using modern web development best practices.”
Best Practices Scores In Descending Order
Bluehost 79
HostGator 79
SiteGround 79
WP Engine 77
GoDaddy 77
IONOS 77
Takeaway
HTTPArchive is expanding on what it is measuring. The performance dashboard is still in Beta and under development, meaning that it may have bugs but that it’s ready for a public preview. It’s interesting to see a managed WordPress host come on top. The scores will be more meaningful once there are more managed web hosts that can be compared against each other, which may provide a more meaningful comparison. Nevertheless, this is a good start.
Visit the new dashboard here and provide your feedback to make it better.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/TierneyMJ