I'm trying to figure out what a reasonable loading time should be for my marketplace website, especially since it's packed with a lot of filtering features. Should my website aim for speeds like 300ms, 150ms, or even lower? I'm currently using Postgres but I feel a bit lost about the standards and practices. I might just end up hiring someone to help optimize it, but I want to educate myself first. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
5 Answers
For a marketplace, you should strive for response times around 150-200ms for filtering options. This is achievable with Postgres if you set up your indexes properly. I've also found tools like Mighty 8th helpful for understanding optimization.
For a typical website action, aiming for under 250ms is key for a smooth experience. Users generally find response times under 250ms to be instantaneous, especially for simple tasks. For filtering and data loading, aiming around 250-500ms is still considered pretty quick, but sub-250ms will feel much smoother overall.
Don't freak out too much; even if your site loads slower than you want, users can be forgiving. Just keep the experience enjoyable, and focus on areas where you can improve efficiency without overloading users with too much information upfront.
The general consensus is that your site should load in under 3 seconds. In fact, about 40% of users will leave if it takes longer. To ensure speed, consider using CDNs, caching, and optimizing your database indexes. If you've got a lot of complex filters, you might even want to look into dedicated search engines like Elasticsearch.
Google suggests aiming for fast load times, and I personally strive for anything under 100ms for my database queries. With Postgres, make sure to optimize your queries and make good use of caching. But hey, if it still feels slow, hiring a performance optimization expert can really pay off.

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