Our XF site slower than our vB site?

[Jo.]

On our test XF site, where we're setting things up to convert our main board (currently on vB), only our staff members have access (there are 8 of us). We have two custom themes set up and 2540 posts. Some of our staff members are convinced that the XF board is much slower to load than the vB board (2,928 members and 1,122,568 posts). I don't see it being slower personally, but that might be because my internet connection is pretty crap and so it's hard to tell. I've done most of what was suggested in the Quickly and Greatly speed up your XenForo thread, and that seemed to have helped on my end, though it's hard to tell just how much of a difference it's made.

The staff members who were complaining that it's slower to load say it's still slower than our vB forum. I don't know how to tell if it really is slower or not, and I don't know what else to try. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

 

[James]

Slowness in terms of browsing would be page load times. You can do an audit on Chrome to see this.

If you're willing to provide links to both forums, page loads can be tested in most/all modern browsers.

 

[Jo.]

Thanks James, our XF site link is: http://www.christiansurvivors.com/xen/index.php and our vB is: http://www.christiansurvivors.com/forums/

 

[Paul B]

Do you have any test results to compare both sites?

That would be the first thing you need to do to remove any perception.

This thread may help somewhat: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/real-world-page-loading-speed.1215/

 

[Jo.]

No, I don't know how to do that Brogan... I'll have a look at that thread.

 

[James]

From quick browsing, the XF site seems to be 1-2 seconds faster than the vB site. Perhaps your other staff are noticing vB to be faster due to everything already being cached in their browser? There are a whole bunch of variables.

Try registering your sites are Google Webmaster Tools and see what they have to say with regard to performance.

 

[Jo.]

Thanks James, I'm setting up Google Webmaster Tools now.

 

[Lawrence]

I have to agree with James. Your XF version seemed faster to me.

I ran a page speed test using FF and your XF version scored 85%, while the vB version scored 77%.

 

[dieketzer]

not sure where you server is located, but both pages open with equal speed from australia.
pretty damn snappy in fact.

 

[Kaiser]

I found the XF forum to load faster by 2 seconds.

 

[Kaiser]

Performance resuts:
Xenforo board: http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.christiansurvivors.com/lcc7HTib Scored 2 B's
vBulletin board: http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.christiansurvivors.com/YwtGfUvI Scored 2 C's

 

[Deebs]

Performance resuts:
Xenforo board: http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.christiansurvivors.com/lcc7HTib Scored 2 B's
vBulletin board: http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.christiansurvivors.com/YwtGfUvI Scored 2 C's

Don't read too much into these "performance" monitoring sites, you could easily score a D or some other value but load way faster than a site that scores a higher rating. User's don't give a rat's ass if you follow every single best practise out there, all they care about is page load speed. Put it this way, I love how fast XenForo loads, do I care if they minify this or that? Or use a CDN? Or optimise images? Nope, not at all, the speed satisfies me. The only thing that these sites measure are today's best practises. Tomorrow it could all change again.

 

[Nasr]

Both sites loaded almost instantly for me. USA here!

 

[Tempest]

They both load instantly for me as well... curse you T1?