Our largest docs sites now render ~6.4x faster

Fern, a company hosting documentation for developer platforms, revamped its system to enhance performance by breaking down its documentation sites from a single, large JSON blob into smaller, content-addressed pieces. This restructuring allows for more efficient updates and faster rendering times, significantly improving from previous cold render times of 1-3 minutes to just 5-10 seconds. By identifying each piece of content by its hash and storing it in layers, the new system reduces the need to reload unchanged parts, enabling quicker publishing and resolving URL paths more efficiently. The transformation also decreased average cold load times from over 10 seconds to as low as 2.5 seconds for large sites, with customers experiencing substantial performance improvements. The transition to this new storage methodology is seamless and automatic for existing users, requiring no action or downtime, while promising to eliminate inefficiencies and enhance the user experience across the board.

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