performance notice

Etch is screaming fast already, but performance scores are based on many factors. Here are a few areas we’re looking to optimize further in the future, to provide next-level performance to all Etch websites (including this one):

Unnecessary Gutenberg Code

Etch uses Gutenberg as its rendering engine, which currently results in a bunch of unnecessary extra styling (from Gutenberg).

In the future, Etch will have a switch to make it easy for users to dump this styling if they'd like. This feature hasn't been released yet

Performance Manager

In the future, an entire Performance Manager will be integrated into Etch. We're currently prioritizing mission critical development features, which it isn't, so it's not available yet. But here is the implication:

This site is currently loading extra scripts that it doesn't need. In the future, you’ll be able to fine-tune what makes it to the front-end, and what doesn't, for specific pages and scopes. Certain things like etch-defaults are also likely to be inlined to alleviate render blocking.

In addition to that, features like SRCSET for proper image file size handling don't exist yet. Given that images are a major aspect of loading performance, having this native ability will have a huge impact on the amount of data pages load.

Third Party Scripts

Another big impact item for performance are third-party scripts.

For example, this site loads many things on top of Etch to do various things:

• Cart / checkout system
• Affiliate tracking
• Analytics
• etc.

When Etch’s Performance Manager dashboard is available, we’ll be able to better control the loading and impact of these scripts and make sure pages are flying not just in lab tests, but in actual real-life scenarios.

Alpha/Dev Version of ACSS 4.0

This site currently uses an unreleased dev version of ACSS 4.0. This new version of ACSS is going to bring tremendous performance improvements as well as updates to things like color handling, etc. but many of these features are not finished yet.

In addition, Etch will be able to detect used styles in the future and safely clear all unused ACSS styles while completely eliminating render blocking warnings. These improvements will be massive for performance (unprecedented in any builder for WP), but are not available yet.

We Encourage Scrutiny!

We want you to inspect the DOM. We want you to run performance tests. We want you to care about these things like we care about these things.

At the same time, we want to be transparent on the current progress on Etch (less than 1 year). What you see is unprecedented for the given development timeline – and we're proud of that – but there's more work to do.

The only development environment better than Etch, is Etch tomorrow. Get in now to get access to all the features as soon as they're available!