Real-World Test: Is a Modern WordPress Website Faster Than a 10-Year-Old HTML5 Website?
Real-World Test: Is a Modern WordPress Website Faster Than a 10-Year-Old HTML5 Website?
July 22, 2026 | WordPress Maintenance
Many business owners believe that an HTML5 website is always faster than a modern WordPress website. That was often the case for many years, but technology has made enormous strides in recent years. Does that assumption still hold true today?
To investigate this, I conducted three real-world tests using websites I developed myself. The first website is an HTML5 site I built about ten years ago. It was tested both on its original hosting environment and on our own dedicated server. The second website is a completely new WordPress site built with Avada Builder and Slider Revolution, optimized using modern techniques for speed and performance.
The results were surprising. Below are the findings from these field tests.
Three real-world tests with GTmetrix results
Test Environment: All measurements were performed using GTmetrix from the same test location (Amsterdam). To assess the impact of both the hosting and the technology used, three real-world tests were conducted:
- Practical Test 1: Old HTML5 website on the original hosting server.
- Practical Test 2: The same HTML5 website on our own dedicated server.
- Practical Test 3: A modern WordPress website on our own dedicated server.
EXAMPLE: OLD HTML5 WEBSITE | https://logopedieschaijkherpen.nl/
Practical Test 1 – HTML5 website (original hosting)
• Performance: 92%
• Largest Contentful Paint: 967 ms
• Fully Loaded Time: 1.0 second
Practical Test 2 (the same HTML5 website on our dedicated server) is discussed below to demonstrate the impact of hosting separately.
EXAMPLE: WordPress website with Avada | https://logopedie.letigre.nl/
Practical Test 3 – Modern WordPress website (dedicated server)
• Performance: 98%
• Largest Contentful Paint: 944 ms
• Fully Loaded Time: 1.0 second
• Performance: 95%
• Largest Contentful Paint: 664 ms
Fully Loaded Time: 785 ms
Practical Test 2: The Impact of Hosting
To determine how much the hosting environment affects a website’s performance, we also tested the same HTML5 website on our own dedicated server.
The results immediately show that a faster hosting environment alone already delivers a clear performance gain:
-
- Performance rises from 92% to 95%
- Structure rises from 94% to 96%
- Largest Contentful Paint drops from 967 ms to 664 ms
- Fully Loaded Time drops from 1.0 seconds to 785 ms
This second practical test shows that a faster hosting environment alone yields a clear performance gain. The quality of the hosting is therefore a key factor in a website’s speed.
Download the GTmetrix reports
To ensure maximum transparency, we are making the complete GTmetrix reports for all three real-world tests available. Click on one of the links below to download the corresponding report.
► Real-world test 1 – HTML5 website on its original hosting
► Real-world test 2 – The same HTML5 website on our dedicated server
► Real-world test 3 – Modern WordPress website on our dedicated server
A striking difference
Once the impact of the hosting had been determined, the HTML5 website was compared to the modern WordPress website on the same high-performance server. Since both websites are now running on the same high-performance server, the impact of the hosting is largely eliminated, resulting in a fairer comparison.
The new WordPress website is nearly three times as large as the old HTML5 website and processes significantly more HTTP requests. At first glance, that might seem like a disadvantage. However, the opposite turns out to be true.
In fact:
- Largest Contentful Paint remains under 1 second.
- The total loading time is approximately 1 second.
- The website achieves a Performance Score of 98%, despite the much larger amount of data and additional functionality.
That’s an impressive achievement when you consider that the WordPress website runs on a full-fledged content management system with far more capabilities than a traditional HTML5 website.
Why is the new website faster?
There are several reasons for this.
1. High-performance dedicated server
The website runs on a fast dedicated server with a very low Time to First Byte, allowing the browser to start loading the page almost immediately.
2. Modern optimizations
Among other things, the website uses:
- Lazy Loading
- Browser Caching
- Optimized CSS
- Modern JavaScript files
- Smart Font Loading
- Responsive Images
Technologies that were barely available ten years ago.
3. Improved Core Web Vitals
These days, Google doesn’t just look at the total load time, but primarily at the user experience.
The website scores exceptionally well in the following areas:
- Largest Contentful Paint
- Total Blocking Time
- Cumulative Layout Shift
As a result, the website feels fast to visitors right away.
Why is the Structure Score lower?
Many people focus exclusively on GTmetrix’s Structure Score. The Structure Score is a technical recommendation score and does not automatically reflect the speed that visitors actually experience. However, it does not always provide an accurate picture of the actual speed.
The lower Structure Score is primarily due to:
- large images
- the lack of a CDN
- A few caching recommendations
- unused CSS and JavaScript files
These are optimizations that have relatively little impact on the actual user experience.
By further optimizing a few images, I expect:
- a page size of approximately 3 MB
- a Structure Score above 90%
- a Performance Score of 99%
without any noticeable loss of quality.
Conclusion
These three real-world tests clearly show that a website’s performance today is determined by much more than just the technology used.
The second practical test demonstrates that a better hosting environment can significantly improve a website’s performance. The third practical test then demonstrates that a modern WordPress website, despite having much larger page sizes and significantly more functionality, can deliver excellent performance when it is technically well-built and optimized.
In other words: These real-world tests show that a modern WordPress website can perform exceptionally well when the hosting and technical optimization are in order. The choice between HTML5 and WordPress is less of a deciding factor than many people think.
My experience
Over the past few years, I’ve developed and optimized hundreds of websites. One conclusion has become increasingly clear: a modern WordPress website doesn’t have to be slow at all. With the right combination of powerful hosting, optimized images, caching, code optimization, and good Core Web Vitals, a WordPress website can perform exceptionally fast. 
These real-world tests confirm that a well-built WordPress website can easily compete with a traditional HTML5 website while offering far greater capabilities in terms of management, SEO, security, and future expansions.