Help me find the fastest Shopify theme

[kprimdal]

So I want to know who has the fastest free or premium them and thought let's make it a collaborative adventure.

I'm looking at Google Pagespeed Insights since it gives me an overall score (I know there are many opinions about this, but at least it is common across all of them). I'm sitting in Denmark when I do the test, so it can have some effect when you are doing the test and you may be testing from another test center. Also, I'm only looking at mobile, because let's face it the majority of users are coming from mobile nowadays

Here are the themes I have tried right now, sorted in what I believe is the fastest: (I hope I can change this later when more is coming)

1. Air Theme One - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 94
2. Debut theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 77
3. Plak Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 70 
4. Booster theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 69
5. Brooklyn - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 51  
6. Ella - Demo - PageSpeed Score:  41
7. Shella - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 33  
8. Prestige - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 26
9. Turbo Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 25 
10. Boostheme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 23 
11. Flex theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 22
12. Fastor - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 20
13. Debutify - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 4
14. Shoptimized - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 2

What are your favorite themes?

[MatthiasMoeller]

I use Brooklyn theme at my store. Would be nice to see its score at your list! 

[kprimdal]

@MatthiasMoeller it is taking a 5th place

[Adel-coder]

My favorite one is Plak, it has the the best score in Gtmetrix.

Their support is great, I paid 79$ for them and they removed some unused features, on my shopify store it shows ( 75% score, you store is faster than similar stores)

[CodingLover]

Comparing themes speed is more than comparing their demos, you need also to check the features :

For example, let's compare Plak demo and Air Theme Demo

• Air Theme One - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 94
• Plak Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 70 

Air theme one features compared to Plak : 

- there is no meganu, no currency converter, no sliders, no parallax, no top freeshipping bar, no testimonial sliders, no blog posts featured, no sidebar filter, no countdown, ...

If you add those features to that theme, the score will surely goes down from 94% to less than 70% or even less than 50%

Google speed insight is not the only you should use, you can also compare the speed using Gtmetrix or other speed test tools

1.  

[kprimdal]

@Adel-coder great to hear. I think those $75 was worth it since lots of themes often load a lot of unused code, so nice to know they are actually doing something about that.

[kprimdal]

@CodingLover I agree there are big differences in what all the themes offer in features. But then again a great theme should be able to offer lots of features and still perform well, just like it looks like plak is actually doing.

And I could also have used GTmetrix, Pingdom, or Webpagetest, and so on, but I chose to go with PageSpeed Insight since I believe that is what most novice users are using and knows. Also, GTmetrix is not giving me the option to test with mobile unless I'm a pro user.

[CodingLover]

You're right ^^ anyway I am not fun of the themes (booster & debutify) their homepage looks like a spam website, they advertise their as fast or even (the fastest) but actually they are pretty slow and have some features which kill conversion rate like (who is viewing this product, ...)

The top 3 themes you mentioned are great for conversion rate, since they are not only fast, but simple in design and looks legit

[OpenThinking]

Hi,

I'd like to introduce you our Bullet theme, we built it with Speed and simplicity in mind. And honestly it is one of the fastest themes out there.

Bullet has a PageSpeed score of 98 (on desktop) out of 100 and a Shopify Speed Score of 76. And also a SEO score of 72 (source: seobility) thanks to our integrated SEO engine.

You can check it out here.

cheers,
Jack.

p.s: Data from tests conducted over the homepage on 18/may/2020

[kprimdal]

@OpenThinking on mobile I don't get the score you are claiming, I only get 84 as the highest. Which is still really solid, and enough for a 2nd place so far:

Unfortunately I cannot edit the first post anymore, so here are the updated list:

1. Air Theme One - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 94
2. Bullet - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 84
3. Debut theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 77
4. Plak Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 70 
5. Booster theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 69
6. Brooklyn - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 51  
7. Ella - Demo - PageSpeed Score:  41
8. Shella - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 33  
9. Prestige - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 26
10. Turbo Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 25 
11. Boostheme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 23 
12. Flex theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 22
13. Fastor - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 20
14. Debutify - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 4
15. Shoptimized - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 2

[davidkean]

Hi @kprimdal,

I'm David from Boostheme team.

One of my themes you have used to test the Pagespeed score is Beloria. The Pagespeed score of our theme in your list is not correct. Beloria's Pagepseed score is now 92 on mobile, 95 on desktop. You can check the result at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbt-beloria-1.myshopi.... I have also developed other fastest Shopify themes such as Vodoma, Woodstock, and Shopcast. All of them have a high Pagespeed score. Even the score is also very good if you test my themes with GTMetrix, Pingdom, Webpagetest, or any other tools. This is the Pagespeed result of Vodoma (92 on mobile and 97 on desktop).

Note: this is the Pagespeed score when my themes have been added lots of features such as megamenu, currency converter, slider, Product Reviews app, free shipping bar, featured blog slider, countdown timer, progressive web app, quick view popup, add to cart popup and upsell products,... The homepage's content also contains at least 3 banner blocks, 2 product tab blocks ( each tab is a slider of products ). Air Theme One does not have all these features, even the basic app like as Product Review app is not also installed on the demo store of this theme, so this theme should not be listed in your list.

[oreoorbitz]

Hey guys, interesting thread.

Important thing to keep in mind when comparing theme preformance is which sections are on the home page. If for instance you have a carousel as the first section, that will hsve more impact then just a image with overlay.

Also if you have a video section with YouTube video, that will hsve a huge impact on pagespeed score, depending on how the theme set up the video section. 

[davidkean]

Hi kprimdal,

I'm David from Boostheme team.

One of my themes you have used to test the Pagespeed score is Beloria. The Pagespeed score of my theme in your list is not correct. Beloria's Pagepseed score is now 92 on mobile, 95 on desktop. You can check the result at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?hl=en&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbt-beloria-1.myshopi.... I have also developed other fastest Shopify themes such as Vodoma, Woodstock, and Shopcast. All of them have a high Pagespeed score. Even the score is also very good if you test my themes with GTMetrix, Pingdom, Webpagetest, or any other tools. This is the Pagespeed result of Vodoma (92 on mobile and 97 on desktop).

Note: this is the Pagespeed score when my themes have been added lots of features such as megamenu, currency converter, slider, Product Reviews app, free shipping bar, featured blog slider, countdown timer, progressive web app, quick view popup, add to cart popup and upsell products,... The homepage's content also contains at least 3 banner blocks, 2 product tab blocks ( each tab is a slider of products ). Air theme one does not have all these features, even the basic app like as Product Review app is not also installed on the demo store of this theme, so this theme should not be listed in your list.

[kprimdal]

 @oreoorbitz I agree, but that is not something the customers are maybe aware of. And I often tell people to try to run the demo site in PageSpeed Insight so you know if it is a fast theme. So if the developer has chosen a video or slider as the first section on mobile, then I'm wondering if they even think about the speed at all.

@davidkean  great to see you have improved the speed, I have updated the charts now. Also, you are absolutely correct, there is big difference in what all the theme offers in features. But even though they offer a lot of features your theme shows that it can still load fast.

1. Air Theme One - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 94
2. Boostheme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 92 (Note this is the Beloria theme, and they have many fast loading themes)
3. Debut theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 77
4. Plak Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 70 
5. Booster theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 69
6. Brooklyn - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 51  
7. Ella - Demo - PageSpeed Score:  41
8. Shella - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 33  
9. Prestige - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 26
10. Turbo Theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 25 
11. Flex theme - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 22
12. Fastor - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 20
13. Debutify - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 4
14. Shoptimized - Demo - PageSpeed Score: 2

[Jessy-clothes]

Hi,

I re-do the test using the same demos & using Google speed insight + Gtmetrix and here are the results I got :

Note : I used only the first 8 themes in your list, the other ones are not fast at all

Gtmetrix score

	Theme	Demo	Gtmetrix (Pagespeed)	Gtmetrix (Yslow)
1	Plak	https://plak-themev1-demo-store.myshopify.com/	99	98
2	Beloria	https://bt-beloria-1.myshopify.com/	98	92
3	Air Theme One	https://primdelux.ph/	97	95
4	Debut	https://debut-theme-default.myshopify.com/	95	95
5	Brooklyn	https://brooklyn-theme-classic.myshopify.com/	95	79
6	Shella	https://shella-demo.myshopify.com/	92	80
7	Booster	https://booster-theme-jewelry.myshopify.com/	87	92
8	Ella	https://new-ella.myshopify.com/?fts=0	86	84

Google speed score (mobile)

	Theme	Demo	Google speed score
1	Air Theme One	https://primdelux.ph/	94
2	Beloria	https://bt-beloria-1.myshopify.com/	91
3	Plak	https://plak-themev1-demo-store.myshopify.com/	79
4	Debut	https://debut-theme-default.myshopify.com/	78
5	Booster	https://booster-theme-jewelry.myshopify.com/	69
6	Brooklyn	https://brooklyn-theme-classic.myshopify.com/	56
7	Ella	https://new-ella.myshopify.com/?fts=0	55
8	Shella	https://shella-demo.myshopify.com/	34

[davidkean]

@kprimdal It seems there is one confusion here. I didn't improve anything about Pagespeed in our themes after I see this topic because all of my themes have always been optimized for performance carefully before release, so I don't need to do anything to improve the PageSpeed score of my themes. You can view the changelog of Beloria at https://beloria-docs.boostheme.com/change-log.

@Jessy-clothes Special thanks for your ranking tables.

[Baldur_Helgason]

Very helpful list once I redesign my store! Thanks 😄

However, I would rather rank the pages for their collection page or article page score since those are the pages that will most likely rank on Google (at least for me)

We’re using the minimal theme and it’s pretty fast https://minimal-fashion.myshopify.com/

66/96 front page

74/94 collection

58/93 product

65/95 article

Our page (with additional apps etc):

64/98 front page

64/99 collection

55/87 product

70/97 article

[kprimdal]

@Baldur_Helgason 

I have just done a new test using the collections pages

Google speed score (mobile)

	Theme	Demo	Google speed score
1	Air Theme One	https://primdelux.ph/collections/all	93
2	Debut	https://debut-theme-default.myshopify.com/collections/all	83
3	Beloria	https://bt-beloria-1.myshopify.com/collections/all	79
4	Booster	https://booster-theme-jewelry.myshopify.com/collections/all	76
5	Brooklyn	https://brooklyn-theme-classic.myshopify.com/collections/all	75
6	Plak	https://plak-themev1-demo-store.myshopify.com/collections/all	74
7	Ella	https://new-ella.myshopify.com/collections/all	42
8	Shella	https://shella-demo.myshopify.com/collections/all	29

I have tested each site multiple times and taken the best score.

[smartphonewidge]

You can't compare the speed of your theme Air Theme One with the other ones, especially with Plak and Beloria.

Your theme Air Theme One is empty, the collection page doesn't have :

- sidebar filter with color swatches
- currency converter
- quickview button
- video ( like the one on plak theme)
- megamenu 
- free shipping bar
- ....

You should only compare themes which have almost the same features.

From what i can see, Beloria & Plak are the fastest shopify themes and this is the right answer to your question, when you add lot of features to your theme, then comeback to compare.

kind regards,

[PJAX]

I would recommend PLAK Theme over the others, not only for the speed or the SEO optimized theme, but also for their great customer support, those guys will never let you down.

More important, you must see other metrics :

Ex: if you have a large inventory, booster won't work as they don't have a filter sidebar, and the one on turbo doesn't work well, if you click on a tag then o a collection, the filters doesn't work, however the one on PLAK seems to be pretty well coded for both mobile and desktop it filters great !

Turbo uses the instant click script which increase the page transition speed, but the inconvenient, this script will conflict with some third party apps and some turbo features. Plak engineered a feature called (Blurry coupon) this features allows you to collect subscribers emails without the need of popups, thus this feature increases the conversion rate with high quality subscribers.

However, I wouldn't even think about Debut, even their own website looks spammy, i can't even trust them

You check it to see for yourself from this speed test tool: https://gtmetrix.com/