Your website platform is not a neutral choice. Before you optimize a single image or hire a developer, your CMS has already set a floor on how well your site performs for real visitors. Google's Core Web Vitals measure this from actual Chrome sessions, not lab tests, and the data shows a nearly 40-percentage-point spread between the best and worst major platforms. All figures here come from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) HTTP Archive Technology crawl, February 2026, covering over 4 million websites across all major CMS platforms.
What CWV Pass Rate Actually Means
A platform's Core Web Vitals pass rate is the share of its sites where 75% or more of real visitors had Good scores on all three vitals: LCP (loading speed), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability). A site passes only when all three metrics are Good simultaneously. A single failing metric drops it out of the count. The global mobile baseline is 48% as of February 2026. Roughly half of all websites on the internet pass Core Web Vitals on mobile. Any platform below 48% is pushing its users below the global average before they make a single optimization decision. These are field measurements from real Chrome users, not lab scores. A platform can score poorly in Lighthouse yet pass CWV in the field, or vice versa. The rankings below reflect actual user experience.
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Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) ↗
Google's real-user performance data across millions of sites, including Core Web Vitals pass rates by CMS platform.
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HTTP Archive Technology Report ↗
Monthly crawl of millions of websites with technology and performance breakdowns. Source for the platform pass rates in this article.
Platform Rankings: Core Web Vitals Pass Rates (February 2026)
All figures are mobile CWV field data at the 75th percentile of real users (CrUX). INP replaced FID as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. The global baseline row shows the aggregate across all websites, not just the platforms listed.
| Platform | CWV Pass Rate | LCP Pass Rate | INP Pass Rate | CLS Pass Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duda | 85% | 94% | 94% | 92% |
| GoDaddy Website Builder | 80% | 90% | 92% | 88% |
| Wix | 79% | 84% | 91% | 97% |
| Shopify | 78% | 87% | 91% | 92% |
| Squarespace | 70% | 78% | 97% | 89% |
| Framer | 69% | 80% | 79% | 94% |
| Webflow | 67% | 73% | 89% | 92% |
| Drupal | 64% | 75% | 89% | 88% |
| Joomla | 58% | 69% | 87% | 86% |
| HubSpot CMS | 57% | 72% | 89% | 79% |
| WordPress | 48% | 55% | 90% | 86% |
| Weebly | 46% | 50% | 71% | 57% |
| Global baseline (all sites) | 48% | -- | -- | -- |
Source: HTTP Archive / CrUX Technology Report, mobile, February 2026. Pass rate = share of sites where 75% of real users had Good scores on all three vitals.
WordPress (48%): The Variable Platform
WordPress powers roughly 43% of the entire web, and its 48% CWV pass rate places it exactly at the global baseline. The February 2026 HTTP Archive crawl tracked over 3 million WordPress origins, by far the largest platform sample. That 48% figure is honest, but it conceals more than it reveals. WordPress performance is not determined by the platform in any fixed way. It is determined, above all else, by the page builder the site uses.
Elementor runs on nearly 1 million websites and has a 35% CWV pass rate, 13 percentage points below the WordPress average.
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How Stackra Scores WordPress Sites →
What Stackra checks on WordPress sites: builder detection, plugin overhead, caching, and how each affects your score.
WordPress Performance by Page Builder (February 2026)
The builder a WordPress site uses is the strongest single predictor of its Core Web Vitals performance, stronger than hosting tier, caching setup, or theme choice. Sites using legacy visual builders should be benchmarked against their builder's pass rate rather than the 48% WordPress average. A WordPress site beating 48% while running Elementor is genuinely performing above its platform class.
| Builder | CWV Pass Rate | LCP Pass Rate | INP Pass Rate | Approx. Origins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress Site Editor (FSE) | 62% | 67% | 90% | 49,000 |
| Beaver Builder | 53% | 58% | 95% | 34,000 |
| Block Editor (Gutenberg) | 52% | 60% | 90% | 627,000 |
| SiteOrigin | 51% | 58% | 94% | 23,000 |
| Oxygen Builder | 51% | 61% | 92% | 13,000 |
| Divi | 42% | 48% | 94% | 171,000 |
| WPBakery | 37% | 44% | 91% | 264,000 |
| Elementor | 35% | 40% | 88% | 990,000 |
Source: HTTP Archive / CrUX Technology Report, mobile, February 2026. FSE = Full Site Editing (block-based theme architecture). Origins represent detected installs in the crawl.
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How to Improve Website Performance →
Practical fixes for LCP, image compression, caching, and plugin overhead on any platform.
Shopify (78%): Exceptional for Ecommerce
Shopify's 78% CWV pass rate is remarkable for an ecommerce platform. Sites on Shopify carry heavy product imagery, cart scripts, third-party apps, and checkout flows: the kind of overhead that typically drags performance well below the global baseline. That Shopify ranks third overall, behind only Duda and Wix, reflects serious platform-level investment: aggressive CDN delivery, server-side rendering of storefront pages, and built-in image optimization. LCP at 87% is especially strong. For a platform where product photography is the primary visual content, getting LCP right at scale is genuinely difficult. If your Shopify store is underperforming, the platform is not the cause. Look at your installed apps (each adds JavaScript) and unoptimized product images first.
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Shopify Speed and Performance ↗
Shopify's documentation on storefront performance, Core Web Vitals, and how to measure your store's speed.
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How Stackra Scores Shopify Sites →
What Stackra checks on Shopify stores: app overhead, image optimization, and platform-level CWV performance.
Squarespace: 70% in the Field, 31 in the Lab
Squarespace has a performance story that confuses nearly everyone who encounters it in a Lighthouse report. The Lighthouse mobile median for Squarespace sites is 31, a score that looks alarming in isolation. But CrUX field data from real Chrome users tells a different story: 70% of Squarespace sites pass all Core Web Vitals, 22 points above the global baseline. The divergence is real and specific. Squarespace uses server-side rendering that Lighthouse's synthetic testing environment penalizes heavily, but that real browsers handle efficiently. The per-metric breakdown explains the platform precisely. INP at 97% is the best responsiveness score of any tracked platform globally. CLS at 89% is solid. LCP at 78% is the drag: Squarespace's SSR overhead delays content paint in ways Lighthouse measures but real users experience differently. If your Squarespace site fails Core Web Vitals, the cause is almost always large images or custom code, not the platform architecture itself.
A Lighthouse mobile score of 31 on Squarespace is not cause for alarm. Real-user CrUX data shows 70% of Squarespace sites pass all Core Web Vitals.
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How to Read PageSpeed Insights →
What Lighthouse scores actually measure, where lab and field data diverge, and how to interpret your results.
Wix (79%): The Biggest Gainer
Wix improved from 74.86% in November 2025 to 79% in February 2026, the largest three-month gain of any major platform in the dataset. CLS at 97% is the best of any tracked platform globally, reflecting Wix's layout stability infrastructure. The platform has invested heavily in performance since 2021, and the CrUX trajectory shows sustained infrastructure work rather than a one-off optimization push. LCP at 84% and INP at 91% are both strong. For Wix owners: the platform automatically compresses images, but video backgrounds and large GIFs bypass that optimization and are the most common cause of underperformance on otherwise well-built Wix sites.
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How Stackra Scores Wix Sites →
What Wix controls automatically and what you need to configure yourself to improve your CWV scores.
Webflow and Framer: Design-First Tools with Performance Gaps
Webflow (67%) and Framer (69%) sit in the same tier: above the global baseline, but below the major consumer platforms. Both attract performance-conscious designers, which makes their CrUX numbers worth examining carefully. For Webflow, LCP at 73% is the primary drag, driven by large hero images and interaction scripts that delay initial paint. CLS at 92% is strong and reflects Webflow's precise grid-based layout system. Framer's specific issue is different: INP at 79% is the lowest responsiveness figure of any config-level platform in the dataset. Framer's animation and interaction system introduces measurable input delay that appears consistently in field data. If your Framer site fails Core Web Vitals, INP is the first metric to investigate. Reducing animation triggers and interaction complexity is the addressable path.
HubSpot CMS (57%): Only 9 Points Above the Global Baseline
HubSpot CMS is a fully managed, hosted platform with complete control over its own infrastructure, CDN, and rendering pipeline. Given that level of control, 57% (only 9 percentage points above the 48% global baseline) is the most disappointing figure in this dataset. The specific weakness is CLS at 79%, the lowest CLS score among all tracked platforms. HubSpot's module system injects dynamic content after initial render, causing layout shift as modules load sequentially. This is platform-level behavior with limited owner recourse. The small origin count (roughly 15,000 sites in the crawl) also means HubSpot's aggregate shifts faster with each platform update than larger platforms like WordPress or Shopify. If you are on HubSpot CMS and failing Core Web Vitals, CLS is the most likely culprit and the most structurally constrained problem.
Duda (85%): The Performance Leader
Duda ranks first among major CMS platforms. LCP at 94% is the best of any tracked CMS, the result of aggressive image optimization and CDN infrastructure built into the platform. INP at 94% is equally strong. The necessary context: Duda has roughly 44,000 origins in the HTTP Archive crawl versus WordPress's 3 million. Duda is primarily used by web design agencies building client sites, not by SMB owners managing their own. Its performance leadership reflects both genuine technical investment and a more controlled build environment: professional builders working within a platform designed for speed, rather than the full range of self-service configurations that characterize platforms like WordPress or Wix.
Duda's LCP pass rate of 94% is the highest of any major CMS tracked in the February 2026 CrUX data.
What This Means for Your Site
Three practical takeaways from this data:
- Know your platform's real baseline. If your WordPress site runs Elementor, your performance benchmark is 35%, not 48%. Beating 48% on Elementor is genuinely above-platform performance. On Duda, 85% is the starting point. Falling below it means there is a real problem worth finding.
- Separate structural problems from addressable ones. Squarespace's LCP drag and Framer's INP penalty are architectural. HubSpot's CLS issues are largely platform-driven. Pursuing a structural performance problem with optimization tools returns limited gains. Know what is actually in your control.
- Platform is not destiny. A WordPress site on Gutenberg or a lean custom theme can reach 60-65% CWV pass rates with focused optimization. A Shopify store with 15 apps and uncompressed product images will underperform the 78% platform baseline. The platform sets the ceiling; your configuration and content choices set the floor.
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Run a free website audit →
See your actual Core Web Vitals scores and how they compare to your platform's benchmark.
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Stackra Benchmarks →
Real performance data across thousands of small business websites, broken down by industry and grade.
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How to Improve Website Performance →
Practical steps for improving load time, Core Web Vitals, and overall performance scores.
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Website Performance Benchmarks for Small Businesses →
Broader context on CWV targets and how to interpret speed benchmarks for your business type.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about CMS performance and Core Web Vitals benchmarks:
- Which CMS has the best Core Web Vitals? Duda leads all major platforms at 85% CWV pass rate as of February 2026, followed by Wix (79%), Shopify (78%), and Squarespace (70%). Among self-service platforms most accessible to small businesses, Wix and Shopify lead.
- What is WordPress's Core Web Vitals pass rate? WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals at 48% on mobile, exactly at the global baseline. The figure varies heavily by page builder. Sites running Elementor average 35%; those using the WordPress Site Editor (FSE) average 62%.
- Why does Squarespace score low on Lighthouse but pass Core Web Vitals? Squarespace uses server-side rendering that Lighthouse's synthetic testing penalizes, but that real browsers handle efficiently. The Lighthouse mobile median for Squarespace is 31, but 70% of Squarespace sites pass all Core Web Vitals in real-user CrUX data. The divergence is consistent and documented.
- Does switching CMS improve Google rankings? Not directly. Google does not rank by CMS. But a platform change that improves Core Web Vitals affects Page Experience, a tiebreaker ranking factor, and more importantly, real user experience. Sites passing CWV convert meaningfully better than those that do not.
- What is the global Core Web Vitals pass rate? As of February 2026, 48% of all websites pass all three Core Web Vitals on mobile. This is up from 44% in 2024. The data comes from Google's Chrome User Experience Report.
- Which WordPress page builder is fastest? The WordPress Site Editor (Full Site Editing / FSE) has the highest CWV pass rate at 62%, followed by Beaver Builder (53%) and the standard Block Editor / Gutenberg (52%). Elementor is the weakest at 35%, despite being the most widely installed builder with nearly 1 million detected installs.
- How often does CrUX data update? The HTTP Archive publishes a technology crawl monthly. The figures in this article are from the February 2026 crawl. Pass rates shift as platforms release infrastructure updates: Wix gained over 4 percentage points between November 2025 and February 2026.