Categories
Front-end Development JavaScript Performance

The Ultimate Showdown: Chrome Lighthouse vs. the rest

Reading Time: 3 minutes

As website owners and developers, we all know the importance of website performance. Slow loading times, clunky user interfaces, and accessibility issues can drive visitors away, resulting in lost revenue and decreased engagement.

That’s where Chrome Lighthouse comes in. This powerful tool is a secret weapon in website performance optimization, providing valuable insights and recommendations to help you improve your website’s speed, accessibility, and user experience.

But what sets Chrome Lighthouse apart from its competitors? Let’s take a closer look.

Automated Testing

One of the biggest advantages of Chrome Lighthouse is its automated testing capabilities. With just a few clicks, you can run a comprehensive performance audit on your website, including tests for performance, accessibility, and SEO. This saves valuable time and resources, as you don’t have to manually test every aspect of your website.

Best Practices and Opportunities Report

Chrome Lighthouse provides a detailed report that not only identifies issues and opportunities for improvement but also suggests best practices for web development. This report can help you prioritize which areas to focus first and provides actionable recommendations for optimizing your website.

Integration with Chrome DevTools

Another unique advantage of Chrome Lighthouse is its integration with Chrome DevTools. This allows developers to use Lighthouse to test their websites in various scenarios, such as simulating a slow network or CPU throttling. This can help identify performance bottlenecks and provide a more accurate representation of how your website performs in real-world conditions.

There are several other tools and services that can be considered competitors to Chrome Lighthouse in the area of website performance testing and optimization. Some of the key competitors include:

  1. GTmetrix – a website performance analysis tool that provides insights on website speed, performance, and optimization tips.
  2. WebPageTest – a free online tool that analyzes a website’s performance and provides detailed information on loading times, content breakdown, and more.
  3. Pingdom – a web performance monitoring tool that provides real-time insights on website uptime, page speed, and performance optimization.
  4. YSlow – a browser extension that analyzes web pages and provides suggestions for improving their performance based on Yahoo’s rules for high-performance websites.
  5. Google PageSpeed Insights – a tool that analyzes a web page and provides optimization suggestions to improve its performance.
  6. Dareboost – a web performance analysis tool that offers in-depth audits, optimization recommendations, and a range of monitoring features.
  7. New Relic – a performance monitoring tool that provides visibility into web application performance, user experience, and more.
  8. Cloudflare – a web performance and security service that offers a range of optimization features, including content delivery network (CDN) services, caching, and image optimization.

Here’s a quick comparison of the key parameters –

Tool NamePricingUser InterfacePerformance MetricsAccessibility TestingSEO TestingBest Features
Chrome LighthouseFreeCLI, Browser Extension, DevToolsPerformance Score, Load Time, First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, Cumulative Layout ShiftYesYesAutomated testing, Best Practices and Opportunities report, Integration with Chrome DevTools
GTmetrixFree/PaidWeb InterfacePage Load Time, Total Page Size, Requests, PageSpeed/YSlow Score, Waterfall Visualization, TimingsNoYesTest server locations, Video playback of page loading, API access, PDF reports
WebPageTestFree/PaidWeb InterfaceLoad Time, Time to First Byte, Start Render, Speed Index, Fully Loaded Time, Video RenderingNoNoCustomizable test parameters, Multi-step transactions, API access, Advanced metrics
PingdomPaidWeb InterfaceResponse Time, Uptime, Page Speed, Page Size, Requests, Performance GradeNoNoReal-time alerts, Public status pages, RUM (Real User Monitoring)
YSlowFreeBrowser ExtensionPage Load Time, Total Page Size, Requests, YSlow Score, Performance GradeNoYesAnalysis of individual components, Customizable rule set, Integration with Firebug
Google PageSpeed InsightsFreeWeb InterfacePerformance Score, Load Time, First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, Cumulative Layout ShiftNoYesOptimization suggestions based on industry best practices, Mobile and Desktop analysis, Lighthouse integration
DareboostPaidWeb InterfacePerformance Score, Load Time, First Byte Time, Speed Index, Fully Loaded Time, Waterfall VisualizationYesYesMonitoring of website uptime and performance, Customizable test scenarios, API access
New RelicPaidWeb InterfaceApplication Response Time, Error Rate, Apdex Score, Throughput, Database Response TimeNoNoReal-time monitoring and alerting, Performance optimization recommendations, Integration with DevOps tools
CloudflareFree/PaidWeb InterfaceLoad Time, Total Page Size, Requests, PageSpeed/YSlow Score, Waterfall Visualization, Content Delivery Network PerformanceNoNoDDoS protection, WAF (Web Application Firewall), Automatic image optimization, Edge caching
Categories
Angular Front-end Development

Exploring the Angular DevTools Extension: A Beginner’s Guide

Reading Time: 4 minutes

For debugging an Angular application some prefer debugger, some only know of console.log(), while some use tools such as Angular Augury or Angular DevTools. With this post I’m gonna introduce Angular DevTools.

Angular is a robust framework for building complex web applications. One important tools I prefer for developing and debugging Angular applications is the Angular DevTools extension, which provides a variety of features for inspecting and manipulating an Angular application at runtime. In this blog post, we will explore some of the key elements of the Angular DevTools extension and how they can be used to improve the development process.

First, let’s take a look at the Elements tab, which allows you to inspect the HTML elements of your application and see how they are rendered. You can see the component tree, view the properties and state of each component, and even make changes to the HTML and see the results in real-time. This is particularly useful for debugging layout and styling issues.

Chrome DevTool – Elements Tab

Next, let’s take a look at the Component tab, which provides detailed information about each component in your application. You can see the inputs and outputs, view the component’s lifecycle events, and even trigger change detection manually. This is particularly useful for understanding how a component works and troubleshooting issues related to data binding and change detection.

Angular DevTools Components

Another useful feature of the Angular DevTools extension is the Profiler tab, which allows you to profile the performance of your application and identify bottlenecks. You can see the time taken by each component to render, view the change detection cycles, and even record a profile of your application and analyze it later. This is particularly useful for optimizing the performance of your application.

In summary, the Angular DevTools extension is a powerful tool for developing and debugging Angular applications. It provides a variety of features for inspecting and manipulating an Angular application at runtime, including the ability to inspect HTML elements, view component information, profile performance, and inspect the state of your application. This extension can help you improve the development process and troubleshoot issues more efficiently.

More on the Components Tab

The Components tab in the Angular DevTools extension provides detailed information about each component in an Angular application. It can be helpful for an Angular developer in the following ways:

  1. Inspecting inputs and outputs: The Components tab allows developers to view the inputs and outputs of a component, which can be helpful in understanding how data is being passed between components and troubleshooting issues related to data binding.
  2. Viewing component lifecycle events: Developers can see the lifecycle events of a component, such as when it is created, updated, or destroyed. This can be helpful for understanding the behavior of a component and troubleshooting issues related to change detection.
  3. Debugging change detection: Developers can manually trigger change detection and view the resulting changes, which can be helpful for troubleshooting issues related to change detection.
  4. Understanding a component’s behavior: Developers can inspect the properties and state of a component and view the resulting HTML, which can be helpful for understanding how a component works and troubleshooting issues related to layout and styling.
  5. Inspecting change: Developers can track the changes in a component, and how they affect the overall application.

Overall, the Components tab in the Angular DevTools extension provides a wealth of information about the components in an Angular application, which can be extremely useful for understanding how a component works and troubleshooting issues related to data binding, change detection, and overall behavior of the component.

More of the Profiler Tab

The Profiler tab in the Angular DevTools extension provides information about the performance of an Angular application. It can be helpful for an Angular developer in the following ways:

  1. Identifying performance bottlenecks: Developers can profile the performance of their application, view the time taken by each component to render, and view the change detection cycles. This can be helpful for identifying performance bottlenecks and optimizing the performance of the application.
  2. Analyzing performance over time: Developers can record a profile of their application and analyze it later, which can be helpful for understanding how the performance of the application changes over time and identifying patterns or trends.
  3. Debugging change detection: Developers can profile the change detection cycles of the application, which can be helpful for troubleshooting issues related to change detection.
  4. Identifying unnecessary re-renders: Developers can inspect the time taken by the component to re-render and find the unnecessary re-renders that might be causing performance issues. Pretty common when change detection strategy is not leveraged correctly.
  5. Identifying the cause of a slow app: Developers can use the profiler to see the call stacks and function calls that are taking the most time and identify the cause of a slow app.

Overall, the Profiler tab in the Angular DevTools extension provides a wealth of information about the performance of an Angular application, which can be extremely useful for identifying performance bottlenecks, understanding how the performance of the application changes over time, and troubleshooting issues related to change detection and unnecessary re-renders. This information can help developers improve the performance of their applications and provide a better user experience.

If you found this blog helpful, don’t hesitate to drop a comment. Thanks.