Measuring Page Speed with Lighthouse and CI/CD

Page speed is crucial for retaining users, as research by Google highlights a significant increase in bounce rates when site loading times are slow, directly impacting revenue. To address this, using Google's Lighthouse tool is recommended for measuring and improving website performance, as it evaluates various aspects including performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and PWA standards. Lighthouse can be integrated into continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines to regularly assess and enhance page speed, with configurations allowing for non-functional testing and setting performance thresholds. Automating Lighthouse with CI/CD involves setting up a repository, installing necessary tools, and creating a pipeline to perform regular benchmarks, store reports, and issue alerts for performance drops. For enhanced insights and historical data analysis, Lighthouse CI offers a dashboard feature, though it requires additional server management, while Semaphore's test reports provide a more streamlined alternative for visualizing test outcomes. These setups ensure that websites maintain optimal speed, enhancing user experience and supporting development processes by acting as a quality gate for web performance and accessibility during updates.