LIGHTHOUSE COMPARISON · TECHNICAL SPIKE
Astro vs WP+Yoast
for editorial publishing
Same content. Same fonts. Same article length. Different stack.
Lighthouse mobile preset · Slow 4G throttling · Median of 3 runs per site
What you're looking at
The test
Google Lighthouse is a free tool built into Chrome that scores any web page from 0 to 100 on four criteria. It simulates a mid-range phone on a slow mobile connection — roughly what a reader in the field might be using. A score of 90+ is Google's official threshold for "Good". Below 50 is "Poor".
The question
Could a Talking Utilities article page — same brand fonts, same content length, same editorial layout — score significantly higher than comparable UK energy sector sites? We built a working prototype and ran the same test against four live competitors to find out.
Why it matters
Performance scores affect Google search rankings directly. A slow page also loses readers before the first paragraph loads: Google's data shows that pages taking over 3 seconds to load lose more than half their mobile visitors. For a subscription-model publisher, every lost reader is a lost conversion opportunity.
The result
The four reference sites — all established B2B energy publications — scored between 50 and 70. The Talking Utilities prototype, built on a modern static framework and served from a global CDN, scored 94. The content and visual design are identical. The difference is entirely architectural.
Reference sites
Four UK/international B2B energy sector publications. Article pages tested, not homepages. Three confirmed WordPress + Yoast, one custom CMS.
The Energyst
"New flexibility standard set to boost network efficiency"
Joanne's style guide explicitly positions Talking Utilities against The Energyst. Primary editorial anchor for this comparison.
EV Infrastructure News
"Decarbonising UK transport: how PPAs and private wire can solve EV charging grid constraints"
Second UK energy sector B2B publication. Included to confirm the pattern is not cherry-picked from a single underperforming site.
EIBI
"UK solar installations hit highest monthly level in more than a decade"
35-year-old UK energy magazine. Running Yoast SEO v15.5 — a version from 2020. Third data point confirming the pattern.
reNews
"California subpoenas Golden State Wind for records"
Renewable energy trade news on a custom CMS. Included to show the performance problem is not WordPress-specific — it's a traditional publishing stack problem.
Lighthouse scores — mobile
Chrome DevTools · Mobile preset · Slow 4G · Median of 3 runs per site
| Score | theenergyst.com WP+Yoast | evinfrastructurenews.com WP+Yoast | eibi.co.uk WP+Yoast | renews.biz Custom CMS | Astro spike tu-lighthouse-spike.pages.dev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | 62 | 50 | 68 | 70 | 94 |
| Accessibility | 80 | 91 | 83 | 73 | 96 |
| Best Practices | 77 | 96 | 96 | 69 | 100 |
| SEO | 100 | 100 | 85 | 85 | 100 |
■ ≥ 90 (Google "Good") ■ < 90
Core Web Vitals — mobile
| Metric | theenergyst.com | evinfrastructurenews.com | eibi.co.uk | renews.biz | Astro spike | Google "Good" |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | 10.07s | 9.60s | 6.5s | 9.6s | 2.50s | ≤ 2.5s |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | 0.0037 | 0.0000 | 0 | 0.009 | 0.0008 | ≤ 0.1 |
| TBT (Total Blocking Time) | 40ms | 387ms | 0ms | 10ms | 0ms | ≤ 200ms |
Lighthouse report screenshots
Chrome DevTools · Mobile preset · Slow 4G
The Energyst — WP+Yoast
Score shown: 59 (this run). Median across 3 runs: 62.
EV Infrastructure News — WP+Yoast
Score shown: 52 (this run). Median across 3 runs: 50.
EIBI — WP+Yoast
reNews — Custom CMS
Talking Utilities — Astro spike
Score shown: 99 (this run). Median across 3 runs: 94.
Structured data comparison
Validated via Google's Rich Results Test.
Reference site (WP+Yoast)
- Article (basic fields only — title, date)
- Author (Person) with affiliation
- Publisher (Organization) with logo
- BreadcrumbList
Astro spike
- Article (full fields: headline, dates, section)
- Author (Person) with jobTitle + affiliation
- Publisher (Organization) with name + URL
- BreadcrumbList (3 levels)
Methodology
Tooling
- Lighthouse 13.0.2
- Chrome Chrome 135 (macOS)
- Mobile device preset
- Slow 4G network throttling (Lighthouse default)
- 3 runs per page — scores are medians
Test conditions
- Same browser, same window size across all tests
- Reference sites tested first
- Astro spike hosted on Cloudflare Pages free tier
- Test date: 5 May 2026
What we tested
- References: The Energyst, EV Infrastructure News, EIBI, reNews
- Spike: Talking Utilities article page
- Same topic domain (B2B energy sector)
- Comparable article length (800–1,200 words)
VERIFY THESE RESULTS YOURSELF
Lighthouse is a public tool. Run it on any article on The Energyst using Chrome DevTools, mobile preset. Compare with this Astro article page. The methodology above describes the exact test conditions. Scores above are medians of 3 runs.