Nicolas HoizeyApr 23

“The Decline of WebPageTest After the Catchpoint Era” by @innoweb

🔗 https://www.innoweb.com.au/blog/the-slow-demise-of-webpagetest

> The spirit of openness, clarity, and technical depth that defined it has been overshadowed by commercialisation and integration. I understand how this happens - it’s a familiar story for beloved tools after acquisition - but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

#WebPageTest #WebPerf

⚓️ https://nicolas-hoizey.com/links/2026/04/22/the-decline-of-webpagetest-after-the-catchpoint-era/

InautiloApr 23

#Development #Analyses
The slow demise of WebPageTest · How the iconic web performance tool lost its edge https://ilo.im/16cdfy

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#Testing #Monitoring #Metrics #WebPerf #WebPageTest #Catchpoint #WebDev #Frontend

The Decline of WebPageTest After the Catchpoint Era

WebPageTest has lost the clarity and developer focus that once made it indispensable, fading into Catchpoint’s enterprise ecosystem and a less usable interface.

Web Development Sydney - Innoweb
Show threadNicolas HoizeyNov 21

“WebPageTest.org is moving to the new UI within the Catchpoint Portal to provide users with enhanced features” in https://docs.catchpoint.com/wptpro/docs/webpagetest-faq

🤣🤦‍♂️🤡

#WebPageTest #Catchpoint #webperf #enshittification

Catchpoint

Show threadNicolas HoizeyNov 21

Ok, the roadmap in #WebPageTest #Catchpoint docs says “Add scripting capabilities to scheduled tests for full control” in the “Later (Future Enhancements)” section…

https://docs.catchpoint.com/wptpro/docs/webpagetest-roadmap

As some features like authentication are now only available in scheduled tests, we can't have both authentification and scripts in the same tests… 😭

Basic authentication is in the “Next (Planned for Upcoming Releases)” section of the roadmap, while it was available before…

#webperf #enshittification

Catchpoint

Show threadNicolas HoizeyNov 21

I would use @speedcurve if I could.

My client allowed #WebPageTest IPs, much easier for them is seems, than checking HTTP headers from SpeedCurve.

#SpeedCurve

Show threadNicolas HoizeyNov 21

With #WebPageTest before #Catchpoint, we could set the URL for the test, and a script that had access to variables like %ORIGIN% or %URL%

Now, when we activate the script feature in an “Instant Test”, the URL field is disabled, so we can't have reusable scripts… 😭

Oh, and it looks like using scripts is not possible in scheduled tests, I couldn't find it. 😡

#webperf #enshittification

Nicolas HoizeyNov 21

Almost every time I try to connect to #Catchpoint 's #WebPageTest with our paid account, I get a 400 error. 😭

I have to try 5 to 10 times before being able to access the tool and use it…

@grigs do you have similar issues?

Show threadLeon BrocardMay 24, 2025
This morning I spent some time speeding up my WebPageTest Uncompressed JavaScript bytes per character web performance metric tool and migrated it away from Glitch to https://javascript-bytes-per-character.astray.com/
It calculates something like: "According to this WebPageTest run, https://www.javascript.com/ requires 2,190,868 bytes of JavaScript to show 2,003 characters of text on the page. That's 1,093.8 JavaScript bytes per character."
#webPerf #webPageTest
Jason GrigsbyMar 20, 2025

I’ve been afraid to enable the new UI for #WebPageTest because I wasn't certain I would be able to get back to the old UI.

But I took the leap today hoping I would find an easier way to run experiments blocking domains.

Has anyone else switched to the new UI yet? What are your impressions?

Nicolas HoizeySep 6, 2024

“Discovering Third Party Performance Risks” by @paulcalvano

🔗 https://paulcalvano.com/2024-09-03-discovering-third-party-performance-risks/

> […] a tool called Third Party Explorer, which leverages WebpageTest data to help analyze a third party’s impact on a page load. The idea behind this tool is that some of the insights already collected during a WebPageTest measurement may enable you to prioritize a list of domains to evaluate proactively.

#WebPerf #WebPageTest

⚓️ https://nicolas-hoizey.com/links/2024/09/05/discovering-third-party-performance-risks/

Discovering Third Party Performance Risks

It likely comes as no surprise that third party content can be a significant contributor to slow loading websites and poor user experience. As performance engineers, we often need to find ways to balance requirements for their features with the strain that they can put on user experience. Unfortunately, for many sites this becomes a reaction to slowdowns and failures detected in production.

Paul Calvano