Everything About The New GTmetrix – Lighthouse

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GTmetrix

GTmetrix is now powered by Google Lighthouse, with a series of new changes — including a new Report Page design, Test Locations, PRO plans and more.

This new algorithm introduced by GTmetrix has Lighthouse as the foundation. This has introduced a new GTmetrix Grade, alongside new Performance and Structure scores.

The GTmetrix Report is also redesigned to accommodate the new Lighthouse data, adding new tabs, visualizations, and additional insights.

Credits: GTmetrix

Why GTmetrix changed to Lighthouse?

According to the older version, the PageSpeed and YSlow they only focused on a particular aspect of performance: the front-end structure of a web page.

These features suggested how to build a website for speed, and the resulting scores represented how well you adhered to those best practices. However, these grading not always corresponded with actual page performance

Introducing Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open-source tool run by Google that offers an assessment of webpages in numerous ways. This integration is considered as the modern standard in web performance metrics.

Lighthouse focuses on the user experience – as in, what metrics reflect a fast website in the perception of the user.

New GTmetrix Grading and Scoring

The new GTmetrix Grade commits to be of a weighted grade. the new features are comprised of new Performance and Structure Scores.

These metrics will give you a better signal of your webpage’s overall performance as it takes into account, both, your front-end structure, as well as, the actual performance experienced by your visitors.

Credits: GTmetrix

As mentioned, the GTmetrix Grade is comprised of the Performance and Structure Scores:

  • The Performance Score influences your GTmetrix Grade the most and involves 6 key metrics, each with its weighting. 
  • The Structure Score is the proprietary assessment of GTmetrix and Lighthouse Opportunity and Diagnostic audits, as well as, their custom audits that they deem relevant to web performance.

Web Vitals

As the key metrics, Google has established Web Vitals that will impact the visitors’ perception of performance, which is why you’ll find them alongside your GTmetrix Grade and Performance/Structure Scores.

Credits: GTmetrix

Focusing on these core metrics will make sure that a webpage is putting right efforts towards optimizations that yield significant improvements to their page performance.

New Report Tabs

The report page also comes with a new design and layout. The revised GTmetrix Report page also includes new Summary, Performance, and Structure Tabs.

Clicking on each tab will provide more details on your Lighthouse audit scores, allowing you to focus on a specific aspect of your page performance.

Another new feature to GTmetrix Reports is the Summary Tab, which shows you a complete snapshot of your page’s Performance, Structure, and load behaviour.

Credits: GTmetrix
Credits: GTmetrix

The previously titled Timings and PageSpeed/YSlow Tabs are now replaced with Performance and Structure Tabs respectively.

New PRO Plans

The PRO plan offering has also been changed in the revised version of GTmetrics.

Credits: GTmetrix
Credits: GTmetrix

Taking user feedback into account through the feedback surveys and usage analysis, GTmetrics has replaced the Bronze, Silver and Gold plans with 6 new plan offerings tailored to suit all types of web performance enthusiasts.

In general, GTmetrix has altered the plans’ usage limits and features in line with the hardware changes needed to power Lighthouse, as well as, the users’ typical usage patterns.

New Test Locations

To expand the global reach, new areas as been added in the Premium Test Locations.

The new locations include many cities of:

  • North America
  • Europe
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Africa
  • Middle-East
Credits: GTmetrix

More UX/UI Changes

Including in many other features that have changed, UX/UI is also to be counted.

Dashboard update

In the new feature, the dashboard has been updated to reflect your page’s latest GTmetrix Grade and Performance/Structure Scores.

Credits: GTmetrix

Analysis Options reorganization and Developer Toolkit changes

In the new version, the “Developer Toolkit” terminology is being used. It has also consolidated all its options under our Analysis Options tab.

This includes relocating all Simulated Devices into the “Using” dropdown in the Test Format options.

New Simulated Devices added

The new version has included 8 new mobile devices into the list of Simulated Devices, making the count to over 30 mobile devices and variants.  

User Settings/Account page reorganization

The previous “User Settings” is now renamed as “Account” page, which now shows your account level and usage details.

All of your account level settings are handled here, including your Profile, default Analysis Options, E-mail preferences, API usage and PRO Settings.

Credits: GTmetrix

Summary

Till date, this has been the largest change ever made to GTmetrix.

The new changes committed to bringing new information and new performance insights for the modern web.

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