Which Industries Have the Fastest Websites?

Which Industries Have the Fastest Websites? We Measured 1.1 Million

5 min readJuly 23, 2026Verified against codebase

We measured real-world site speed across 1.1 million US business websites and grouped it by industry. The spread is 17 points.

Simple local and consumer sites like restaurants and recreation are the fastest. Content-heavy media sites and business-to-business sites are the slowest. Here is the full ranking, and why the pattern shows up.

AIndustry

Internal data research, US business web corpus

BStack

BigQuery, Chrome UX Report (CrUX), HTTP Archive

COutcome

A 17-point spread. Simple local and consumer sites like restaurants, recreation, and retail pass Core Web Vitals most often. Content-heavy media sites and business-to-business or professional-services sites lag behind.

At a glance

Which industries actually have the fastest websites? We answered it with field data from real visitors, not opinion.

76%

Fastest industries

restaurants and recreation, Core Web Vitals pass rate

59%

Slowest industry

professional services: law, accounting, consulting

17 pts

The spread

fastest industry vs slowest

67%

All-industry baseline

pass rate across every site measured

What we measured

Core Web Vitals are Google's real-world speed and stability scores. We pulled them from the Chrome User Experience Report, which records how actual US mobile Chrome users experience a site, then grouped every measured site in our 1.1 million-site corpus by industry. A site passes when it clears all three thresholds at once. Only sites with enough real traffic to measure are included.

The ranking

Consumer and local-service industries sit at the top. Content-heavy and business-to-business industries sit at the bottom, all measured against the 67% all-industry baseline.

Core Web Vitals pass rate by industry

Baseline is 67%, the pass rate across all industries. Source: Stackra corpus, Chrome UX Report field data (US mobile), 2026.

Core Web Vitals pass rate by industry

Industry	CWV pass rate	Sites measured
Restaurants	76%	56,174
Recreation	76%	12,622
Retail	74%	57,306
Government	74%	10,906
Healthcare	71%	21,244
Education	68%	18,676
Content / media	62%	13,755
B2B services	62%	15,414
Professional services	59%	11,551

Baseline is 67%. Source: Stackra corpus, Chrome UX Report field data (US mobile), 2026.

Why content-heavy sites lag

The pattern follows page weight. A restaurant or recreation site is usually light: a few pages, some photos, a menu. Media sites carry video, ad scripts, and heavy interactive elements. B2B and professional-services sites are more often custom-built on heavier stacks. More on the page means more for a phone to load, and slower phones fall behind first.

Platform vs speed: what 1.1M sites reveal

The deeper driver behind slow sites: whether the page ships finished HTML or builds itself in the browser.

What this means for your site

Your industry sets a rough expectation, not a ceiling. A professional-services site can absolutely pass Core Web Vitals. It just starts from a heavier average. The fix is the same in every industry: lighter pages, compressed images, and shipping real HTML instead of building the page in the browser.

Run a free Stackra audit

See how your own site's Core Web Vitals compare against real businesses in your industry.

Frequently asked questions

What are Core Web Vitals, and what does it mean for a site to 'pass' them?

Core Web Vitals are Google's three field metrics for real-world speed and stability: Largest Contentful Paint (loading speed), Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability), and Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness). A site passes when it clears all three thresholds at once, at the 75th percentile of its real visitors. This study used Chrome UX Report field data, not a lab simulation, so the numbers reflect what actual US mobile Chrome users experienced.

Which industries have the fastest and slowest websites?

Restaurants and recreation sites lead at a 76% Core Web Vitals pass rate, followed by retail and government at 74%. Professional services (law, accounting, consulting) is slowest at 59%, with content/media and B2B services tied at 62%. That is a 17-point spread against a 67% all-industry baseline.

Why do content-heavy and B2B sites tend to be slower than restaurant or retail sites?

The pattern follows page weight. A restaurant or recreation site is usually light: a few pages, some photos, a menu. Media sites carry video, ad scripts, and heavy interactive elements, and B2B or professional-services sites are more often custom-built on heavier stacks. More content and code on the page means more for a phone to load, and slower phones fall behind first.

Does being in a slow industry mean a website cannot pass Core Web Vitals?

No. Industry sets a rough expectation, not a ceiling. A professional-services site can absolutely pass Core Web Vitals; it just starts from a heavier average. The fix is the same in every industry: lighter pages, compressed images, and shipping real HTML instead of building the page in the browser.