The free tools behind these articles

No affiliate links, no paid placements. Just what Samuel actually keeps open while researching a piece.

Desk setup with two monitors displaying performance dashboards and a notebook with handwritten notes
A fairly typical Tuesday afternoon on this desk: three dashboards, one notebook.

PageSpeed Insights

Google's public tool that runs both a lab test and, when there's enough traffic on a page, pulls in real Chrome UX Report field data for the same URL. It's usually the first stop when checking a page.

  • Combines lab data with real-user field data when available
  • Free, no account required, works on any public URL
  • Field data can be missing entirely for lower-traffic pages

Lighthouse (Chrome DevTools)

The same auditing engine behind PageSpeed Insights, but running locally inside Chrome's developer tools panel. Useful for testing a page before it's public, or for running repeated checks without leaving the browser.

  • Runs entirely inside Chrome, no external service involved
  • Can audit local development builds, not just live URLs
  • Scores vary run to run depending on machine load

WebPageTest

A free, more detailed testing tool that lets you choose a real device and connection type, then returns a filmstrip view of the page loading frame by frame. More granular than Lighthouse, and correspondingly more to read through.

  • Tests from real device and browser combinations, not just simulations
  • Provides a visual filmstrip of the loading sequence
  • The depth of data can be overwhelming without a specific question in mind

Chrome UX Report public dataset

A large, publicly queryable dataset of real Chrome user experience metrics, aggregated by origin. This is where Devon spends most of his time, mainly through the CrUX dashboard and public BigQuery tables.

  • Built from real Chrome users who've opted into usage statistics
  • Aggregated by month, by origin, not by individual visitor
  • Requires enough traffic on a site before data becomes available

Core Web Vitals browser extension

A free browser extension that overlays live Core Web Vitals readings while browsing normally, rather than running a separate test. Good for a quick, informal sense of a page's behavior in the moment.

  • Shows live metrics as you browse, no separate test needed
  • Handy for a fast, informal read on a single page visit
  • Not a substitute for field data collected across many real visits

None of these tools are sponsors of this blog, and none of them were chosen for anything beyond being free, publicly available, and genuinely useful for reading a page's own data. If one of them changes its pricing or shuts a feature behind a paywall, we'll update this page to say so.