Hey techies, I’ve been diving into website performance lately, and I keep stumbling across this term “TTFB.” It sounds technical, but I can’t quite grasp what it means. Is TTFB some kind of website speed demon? Or is it more about how a server responds?
Anyone care to explain TTFB in layman’s terms? Maybe even share some tips on how to improve it? A fellow website enthusiast here needs your help
It signifies “Time to First.” Byte is the amount of time it takes for a server to react to a request, such as showing a page from your website.
TTFB, or Time To First Byte, is how long it takes for your browser to receive the first chunk of data from a web server after requesting a page. It’s all about server responsiveness. To speed it up, optimize your server, use CDNs, minimize redirects, cache content, and optimize your code and database queries. Fast TTFB means quicker website loading for users.
Either the network or the server (code) will have high TTFB.
Network: Do you experience the same problem when you are in close proximity to the server? Does the problem originate in more than one region?
Install an APM tool on your server, such as NewRelic, and it will display a stack trace of your slowest queries. Many people used to find NR to be very expensive, but with their new structure and substantial free tier, they are no longer prohibitively expensive.
Make a simple static “hello world” HTML file and see the kind of ttfb that results. A server problem is the cause of a slow basic HTML file. If it’s quick but your website loads slowly, there may be a problem with the website.