Blog post
60% of Gen Z won’t engage with a slow-loading website. In today’s digital economy, that’s a deal-breaker. Whether it’s a banking portal, a travel app, or an AI-powered SaaS platform, users expect performance. Instant loading, global reliability, and smooth interactivity aren’t just nice to have—they define the winners.
At Catchpoint, we’ve spent the past several years benchmarking the web performance of the world’s most recognizable brands—from HSBC and Google Flights to Salesforce and Nike. Our industry benchmark reports span sectors including banking, GenAI, airlines, hotels, travel aggregators, and athletic footwear and apparel.
Each report is powered by our industry leading IPM platform and Global Agent Network of over 3,000+ agents worldwide. This data-driven approach gives us a uniquely authoritative view into what separates the fastest sites on the web from the rest.
This blog distils the key findings from our latest benchmark reports: six traits the fastest sites share, and how organizations across any industry can apply them to build faster, more resilient digital experiences.
#1. Lightning-fast infrastructure: DNS & TTFB
One common trait is a rock-solid network foundation – quick DNS lookups and rapid server responses. The fastest sites minimize any lag between a user’s request and the first byte of data returned:
Optimized DNS: Across industries, the fastest sites keep DNS resolution times extremely low—often under 50 ms. A quick DNS lookup shaves valuable milliseconds off the initial request and helps the page begin loading faster.
For instance, in our 2024 benchmark of athletic footwear and apparel brands, top performers like Kappa and Under Armour resolved DNS in under 1 ms, while others such as Skechers and On remained comfortably below the 50 ms threshold. At the other end of the spectrum, slower-loading sites like Nike and VEJA saw DNS times of 169–187 ms—over 3× slower than the best performers.
This early delay often signals broader infrastructure inefficiencies. In nearly every sector we’ve analyzed, lower DNS times strongly correlate with faster overall load speeds.
Snappy TTFB: Likewise, elite sites boast backend servers that respond in a heartbeat. The top two banking websites all returned server responses in under 200 ms, providing a swift handoff to the browser.
But in the athletic apparel space, only Puma and Under Armour hit that bar (101 ms and 107 ms, respectively).
Many others struggled: Nike, VEJA, and Kappa all had TTFB exceeding 950 ms, with Nike peaking at 1.1 seconds—more than 5× slower than the recommended threshold.
This kind of server-side delay often negates gains made elsewhere, like in front-end optimization or CDN use. Across all verticals we benchmarked, fast TTFB was a strong predictor of high overall performance.
#2. Globally distributed delivery
The fastest websites don’t just perform well in one country – they invest in global delivery infrastructure, so users everywhere get quick load times. Our data shows that sites leveraging Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and regional optimizations avoid the huge geographic performance gaps that plague others:
Localized CDNs: Leading sites deploy globally distributed servers and CDN endpoints to bring content closer to users. In banking, for example, the highest performers (UBS, ING, HSBC, etc.) achieved consistent experiences worldwide by using localized infrastructure and optimized DNS routing. In contrast, sites without regional presence suffered severe slowdowns – in Africa and South America, some banks had page load times double those in North America. (One test showed 10.7 s waits in Africa vs ~5 s in the U.S.)
Consistent speed everywhere: The data confirms that being fast everywhere is part of being a fastest-in-class website. While lower-ranked sites still show wide regional performance gaps, top performers prove it’s possible to deliver fast, reliable experiences globally—though Africa remains a challenge for all.
#3. Lean pages, fast Loads
Another hallmark of the web’s fastest sites is lightweight, efficiently coded pages that reach full load in just a few seconds. They avoid the bloat and complexity that drag others down:
Blazing-fast loads: The elite websites consistently fully load in ~2–3 seconds or less. In banking, only 25% of sites met the ideal of <3 s document complete, but every top-ranked bank did. In fact, the best performers in finance all loaded in under 2 s while maintaining ~99.9% uptime. Similarly, across other industries, top sites hit very low page load times – travel sites like Skyscanner achieved sub-0.7 s Largest Contentful Paint and mere ~1.2 s full loads, indicating extremely fast content delivery.
Minimal baggage: In contrast, slower sites tend to be weighed down by heavy content and excess scripts. Many well-known brands ranked outside the top tier due to “heavy content and front-end complexity.” These bulky pages took over 5–9 seconds to load, or in the case of Marriot below, over 10 seconds.
The takeaway: fastest sites keep their pages lean – optimizing images, compressing files, and capping third-party elements to avoid sluggish load times.
By keeping page weight low and complexity in check, top performers ensure users aren’t left staring at blank screens. Fast complete load times not only improve user satisfaction but also reduce bounce rates – a win-win for experience and business metrics.
#4. Stellar front-end optimization & core web vitals
Beyond just loading quickly, the fastest websites also feel fast and stable to users. They achieve this through meticulous front-end optimization, evidenced by outstanding Core Web Vitals metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS):
Fast content rendering (low LCP): Top sites prioritize delivering meaningful content immediately. In Catchpoint’s travel industry test, all of the 10 fastest sites had LCP well within recommended standards – many under ~1 second. For example, Skyscanner’s LCP came in around 613 ms, with even the 10th-best still near 1.1 s – comfortably beating the ~2.5 s guideline. This means users see the page’s main content almost instantly on these sites.
Slower sites, on the other hand, often struggle with LCP above the 2.5 s mark, making them feel sluggish even if the total load isn’t horrific.
Stable layouts (no janky moves): A striking data point – the top 10 travel websites all had a perfect CLS score of 0.00. Likewise, the best banks and retail sites exhibited virtually no unexpected layout shifts during load. In practice, this means no annoying page jumps (caused by late-loading ads or images) for the user.
Fast sites achieve this by reserving space for images/media and loading content in a controlled way. By contrast, lesser performers saw CLS values up to 0.8–1.5, causing noticeable “jank” and hurting user experience.
It’s clear that front-end experience is the real differentiator among websites. Sites that not only load quickly but also render smoothly (low LCP) and stay visually stable (low CLS) ended up at the top of Catchpoint’s rankings. These Core Web Vitals were highly correlated with overall performance scores, underscoring that fastest sites focus heavily on user-centric front-end metrics.
#5. High availability without sacrificing speed
Leading websites understand that availability and speed must go hand in hand. It’s not enough to be up 24/7 if your site is slow or error-prone when loaded. The fastest sites manage to deliver near-perfect uptime and quick performance simultaneously:
Near-perfect uptime: The majority of top performers maintain 99.9% or better availability. In the 2025 Banking benchmark, 75% of sites had at least 99.9% uptime – and all of the top finishers were essentially always-online. In fact, the #1 sites in multiple industries achieved ≈100% uptime during the testing period. This level of reliability ensures users rarely encounter errors or downtime.
Reliability and Speed: Crucially, the best sites don’t treat uptime as a safety net for poor performance. Availability isn’t the safety net it used to be.Several lower-ranked companies across industries had 99.9% uptime yet still fell behind due to slow pages or unstable fronts. Top sites avoid this trap by pairing high availability with fast, stable loads. They have resilient infrastructures to stay online, and they proactively monitor performance so that being “up” always means delivering a quality experience. Conversely, a few sites had serious outages (dipping to ~90% uptime) which obviously knocked them out of contention.
The bottom line: reliability is foundational, but true excellence comes from reliability + speed. The fastest websites prioritize both. Users expect a site to be available and to respond instantly – leading sites deliver on that expectation consistently.
#6. Culture of continuous optimization
Speed isn’t a one-time project. The fastest websites treat performance as an ongoing discipline—one rooted in measurement, iteration, and readiness for peak demand.
Instacart is a clear example. While their average TTFB during the Super Bowl benchmark period was a sluggish 1,051 ms, that changed on game day. On February 9th, when their Super Bowl ad aired, Instacart slashed TTFB significantly—demonstrating that with the right optimizations, even high-traffic moments can be performance wins.
This kind of readiness doesn’t happen by accident. Across all industries, one of the strongest shared habits of high-performing sites is this culture of continuous optimization. When performance is treated as a living system—not just a launch checklist—organizations are better equipped to handle traffic spikes, user expectations, and the unexpected.
Final thoughts: speed is strategy
The patterns are clear. The fastest sites on the web invest in performance at every level: from back-end infrastructure to front-end polish, from global delivery to rigorous uptime, all under a philosophy of ongoing improvement. These sites prove that it’s possible to be both fast and reliable– delighting users with sub-3 second loads, silky-smooth pages, and dependable service. Meanwhile, competitors that neglect these areas struggle with slow load times, unstable pages, or regional outages, putting them at a serious disadvantage.
The good news is that these best practices are well-understood. As our benchmark reports show, the top performers simply execute them better – and reap the rewards in user experience. By adopting the common habits of the fastest websites, including smart DNS/CDN usage, lightweight design, and Core Web Vitals focus, any website can dramatically improve its speed. After all, as the data reminds us, “it’s no longer enough to be available; you have to be fast everywhere”. The fastest sites have set the bar – and they invite others to catch up.
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