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Comparing Wordpress to Memex

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Once finished the convert-wordpress-into-memex process the following outlines some comparisons between the two systems:

  1. Wordpress - the original blog using the Wordpress engine.
  2. MkDocs - the new blog using the MkDocs static site generator.

In summary, the MkDocs version is faster, however, it could be improved. Some changes were made but some possible big improvements are not possible. For example, enabling compression could be done using the Material for MkDocs plugin, but it is only available to sponsors.

What type of testing?#

Use of Web page test and Google PageSpeed Insights to evaluate and learn more about the performance of the web sites. Using numerous other sites to compare the size of the web pages generated by the two systems.

Findings#

Initial#

Initially testing with the Web page test and Google PageSpeed showed that the MkDocs version was faster. For example, Webpage test giving performance scores of 81 and 95 (mobile and desktop) for the MkDocs version and 50 and 58 for the Wordpress version for the same individual blog post. The home page - a much larger web page in both systems - was given performance scores for just desktop of 61 (MkDocs) and 39 (Wordpress). On Best practices and SEO scores MkDocs and Wordpress were equivalent. MkDocs performed somewhat better on Accessibility.

Web page test identified the Google font and render-blocking scripts (e.g. Glightbox) as the two main issues with the MkDocs version.

Lighthouse analysis#

Comparison of the "what now" post

Criteria Wordpress MkDocs
Performance 56 77
Accessibility 79 84
Best practices 100 100
SEO 92 83

Server response time

Server response time was identified as significant on both. Suggesting that the connection between hosting provider and me is an issue.

Issues identified

  • The search index for Material for MkDocs is the most significant (just over 14Mb) bit of content for the MkDocs version.
  • Image elements are missing the alt attribute. e.g. Cover images for blog posts. fixed
  • CC-BY-NC-SA logo and link could be improved - add width/height and name the link fixed
  • size of included image fixed
  • Applying common optimisation techniques - not available - Material for MkDocs has an optimisation plugin, but only available to sponsors