--- title: #performance description: 21 articles about performance — guides and explainers from the WatchFor team. canonical: https://watchfor.io/blog/tag/performance --- [All posts](/blog) # #performance Articles tagged "performance". [All](/blog)[Monitoring](/blog/category/monitoring)[Networking](/blog/category/networking)[Performance](/blog/category/performance)[Security](/blog/category/security)[Reliability](/blog/category/reliability)[Email](/blog/category/email)[DevOps](/blog/category/devops)[Engineering](/blog/category/engineering) [All articles](/blog/all) 21 article s · page 1 of 2 [EngineeringSep 10, 2026 ## Your CDN didn't go down. It stopped caching — and nothing told you. Every other outage announces itself. A CDN that stops caching does the opposite: the site stays up, every status code stays 200, and your uptime dashboard stays green while every single request travels to your origin. Here's why that happens, why one request from one machine can never detect it, and what we built to catch it — including the claims we refused to make.WatchFor Team10 min read](/blog/why-your-cdn-stopped-caching)[PerformanceJun 19, 2026 ## Core Web Vitals Explained: LCP, CLS, INP (and how to keep them green) Google grades your pages on three numbers — and they affect both how your site feels and how it ranks. Here's what LCP, CLS and INP actually measure, what 'good' looks like, and how to fix them.WatchFor Team4 min read](/blog/core-web-vitals-explained)[MonitoringJun 06, 2026 ## Synthetic vs Real User Monitoring (RUM): what's the difference? Synthetic monitoring and RUM answer two different questions about your site. Here's what each one does, where each shines, and why the best setups use both.WatchFor Team4 min read](/blog/synthetic-vs-real-user-monitoring)[PerformanceApr 22, 2026 ## Latency & Percentiles: why p99 matters more than the average Your average response time looks great — so why are users complaining? Because averages lie. Here's why percentiles like p95 and p99 tell the real story of how your service feels.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/latency-percentiles-p99)[NetworkingApr 11, 2026 ## 504 Gateway Timeout: what it means and how to fix it A 504 means a proxy waited for your app to respond — and gave up. It's the signature of something slow, not something dead. Here's how to find the slowness and fix it.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/504-gateway-timeout)[PerformanceApr 08, 2026 ## What is a CDN? (And do you actually need one?) A CDN makes your site faster by serving it from locations close to your users. Here's how that works, what you actually gain, and whether your site needs one.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-a-cdn)[PerformanceMar 14, 2026 ## What is TTFB (Time to First Byte) and how to improve it TTFB is the first number that tells you whether your backend is fast or slow. Here's what Time to First Byte measures, what's 'good', what makes it bad, and how to bring it down.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/ttfb-explained)[MonitoringFeb 06, 2026 ## Monitoring Serverless (Lambda and friends) Serverless means no servers to watch — and a few new things that can go wrong. Here's what to monitor when your code runs as functions: cold starts, duration, errors and throttles.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/monitoring-serverless)[PerformanceJan 31, 2026 ## How to Speed Up Your Website (the high-impact wins first) Website speed affects conversions, bounce rate and even SEO. The good news: most of the gains come from a short list of fixes. Here they are, roughly in order of impact.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/how-to-speed-up-your-website)[PerformanceJan 29, 2026 ## LCP Explained: Largest Contentful Paint (and how to improve it) LCP is the Core Web Vital that answers 'when does the page feel loaded?' Here's exactly what it measures, what counts as good, and the handful of fixes that move it most.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/lcp-explained)[PerformanceJan 27, 2026 ## CLS Explained: Cumulative Layout Shift (and how to fix it) CLS measures the most annoying thing on the web: the page jumping around as it loads. Here's what it is, what counts as good, and how to stop your layout from dancing.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/cls-explained)[PerformanceJan 25, 2026 ## INP Explained: Interaction to Next Paint (and how to improve it) INP is the newest Core Web Vital — it measures how quickly your page responds when people actually interact with it. Here's what it is, what's good, and how to make your site feel snappy.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/inp-explained)[PerformanceJan 23, 2026 ## Lighthouse Explained: how to read the score Lighthouse gives your page a 0–100 score across performance, accessibility, SEO and more. Here's what it actually measures, how to read it, and the trap of chasing a perfect 100.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/lighthouse-explained)[PerformanceJan 21, 2026 ## Image Optimization for the Web (the biggest easy win) Images are usually the heaviest thing on a page — and the easiest to fix. Here's how to make them load fast without looking worse: compress, resize, modern formats, and lazy loading.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/image-optimization)[PerformanceJan 19, 2026 ## Caching Explained: browser, CDN and server caches Caching is the closest thing the web has to free speed: store a result once, reuse it many times. Here are the three layers of caching, how each works, and the one hard part — invalidation.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/caching-explained)[NetworkingJan 17, 2026 ## HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3: what actually changed HTTP keeps getting faster. HTTP/2 fixed how requests share a connection; HTTP/3 changed the connection itself. Here's what's different, in plain terms, and whether you should care.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/http2-vs-http3)[PerformanceJan 15, 2026 ## Gzip vs Brotli: web compression compared Text compression shrinks your HTML, CSS and JS before they travel — for free speed. Here's how gzip and Brotli compare, and which to use where.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/gzip-vs-brotli)[PerformanceJan 13, 2026 ## Web Font Performance: fast text without the flash Custom fonts make a site look great — and can quietly slow it down or make text vanish during load. Here's how to keep your typography both beautiful and fast.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/web-font-performance)[NetworkingJan 11, 2026 ## What is Latency? (and how to reduce it) Latency is the delay between asking for something and getting it — and it shapes how fast everything online feels. Here's what it is, what causes it, and the practical ways to cut it.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-latency)[NetworkingJan 09, 2026 ## Bandwidth vs Latency: what's the difference? “I have fast internet, so why is this slow?” Because speed has two dimensions — bandwidth and latency — and they're not the same thing. Here's the difference, with a simple analogy.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/bandwidth-vs-latency) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/blog/tag/performance · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt