Why https sites are slow to load?

[christax]

I visited many websites and all of https sites are slow to load if compare with non-ssl (http) sites. What is making a https site loads slowly? How to improve this if I move my site to https?
Any comments would be appreciated!

[dbs00]

I changed some of my sites to https , didn't notice a increase in loading speed.
Try using other browsers.

[virtubox]

I visited many websites and all of https sites are slow to load if compare with non-ssl (http) sites. What is making a https site loads slowly? How to improve this if I move my site to https?
Any comments would be appreciated!

https require more time than http to etablished the connection, this is due to the SSL handshake. But it should not have an impact bigger than few milliseconds. If a site with https load slowly, that's not due to the https.

[enstinemuki]

Hi,
Did you also try that on different browsers?
The difference shouldn't be felt at all. Looks like an issue with your local browser rendering.

[SenseiSteve]

I visited many websites and all of https sites are slow to load if compare with non-ssl (http) sites. What is making a https site loads slowly? How to improve this if I move my site to https?
Any comments would be appreciated!

Is this just your perception or have you performed speed tests on these sites?

[iserveradmin11]

That is not so true .
Https does not effect speed there might be some other issue.

[Ingener]

That is not so true .
Https does not effect speed there might be some other issue.

I agree with you. The main reason may be that the web designer did not install the plugin to speed up the page load

Try some software to help speed up your web browsing. I believe it will improve your access speed

[Mike001]

Christax,

I have to disagree with you, if the site properly configured the speed difference in loading will be almost unnoticeable.

When the site makes the initial connection with the host there is an additional handshake setup as the encryption key is generated for that particular connection, the key is unique to that particular session and is one of the reasons that the https connection is so secure. Once the key is generated and handed off to the browser the connection is established and things move along very quickly.

In one of the classes I teach, a few years ago, we looked at how the different rendering engines handle this key and the delays associated with assigning the key to the session. Even then, and this was towards the beginning of the https protocol being established the browser rendering engines handled this transition very well and we only saw a delay of a few milliseconds, thousandths of a second for non engineer types, which was barely noticeable.

Over the years with the updates to the rendering engines and the additional changes to the https protocol stack the delay now is almost non-existent and in some cases may even be faster than a standard connection, as the standard connections (non-secure) are now becoming part of the exception rules with some web servers.

If you are seeing significant delays across multiple browsers using the https protocol stack, it is something in the way the pages have been assembled or coded. Keep in mind that as more and more sites move to the https protocol stack, and they are moving in that direction for security reasons, the adherence to the proper structure of the HTML5 pages is being more closely watched by the search engines.

If you are not following the proper structure sequence that could be a reason for some of the delays you are seeing.

Without seeing your site, this is merely speculation but based on what I have been seeing over the last few years it is a pretty accurate speculation on what maybe occurring.

[vishwa]

I agree with Mike. Sometimes a site with misconfigured settings can slow down your site. You have to optimize the site to make it load fast in browsers. SSL does not slow down your site.

[SakamHost]

First of all https doesnt change your site speed load, it depend on your server how he will load the certificate and site.
Your site can be slower if your server has bad load and is not optimized with your site.

[Riviera]

I used to change from http to https, it's slower. Then i change the hosting to local hosting provider. The loading speed improved much! For me, that's the matter of hosting data center location.

[braxtoncina]

HTTPS does not effect on your loading speed I think there are some other issues like browser capability or hosting performance.

[JerryJo]

HTTPS does not effect on your loading speed I think there are some other issues like browser capability or hosting performance.

How can you proven this?
HTTPS needs a little time to process your info in security thus it will make your site slow abit though.

[cochinweb]

We never noticed any difference between them. i think it might not have been configured correctly or some improper redirect that makes you feel slow.

[virtubox]

How can you proven this?
HTTPS needs a little time to process your info in security thus it will make your site slow abit though.

Here the difference between http and https :

[Judas2018]

Perhaps for some this happens? But there could be all kinds of different reasons why a particular website loads slowly. I've noticed some non https sites load slowly also. Seems to be more of an issue on their end or maybe your browser end - than https always being the culprit.

[jeiss]

I believe this might just be a mere assumption if it has not be proven with authentic analysis. There really isn't any notable difference between how fast a http or https webpage loads. It all depends on the configuration properties of the website or the structural arrangement of items and elements on the website.

For instance, having a Java Script with a function which is best suited to activate after a page loads and is not set that way might slow down page loading speed and have an effect on how fast that page loads.

[joey_2tep]

Most of the comments are correct. It doesn't really matter whether the site uses either HTTP or HTTPS. It doesn't have to do with the speed nor stability of loading page. It is actually dealing with security and not the connection. It really depends on your internet connection and most of the time, servers of the website you are trying to access gets interrupted by the numbers of users.

[etdigital]

Hello,

HTTPS doesnt affect your loading speed. Kindly check your website in other browsers. Https deals with website security and privacy.

[Dopani]

Here the difference between http and https :

I don't understand this
From your images then even page size from https is optimized and faster than http

[virtubox]

I don't understand this
From your images then even page size from https is optimized and faster than http

I have used Cloudflare to run this test, and their proxy minimize all assets. I will try to run another test without cloudflare

[Hostens]

The HTTPS site's loading time is longer, however, the difference is up to 2ms, which should not be felt when loading the page. If the change in load time is bigger than 2ms then there might be the issue with caching of the website. Sometimes the caching slows the load time for HTTPS websites. Also the issue could be with a lot of large images on your website, which takes more time to load with SSL certificate on.

[Marc van Leeuwen]

I have used Cloudflare to run this test, and their proxy minimize all assets. I will try to run another test without cloudflare

I am hoping to see your test with and without Cloudflare

The HTTPS site's loading time is longer, however, the difference is up to 2ms, which should not be felt when loading the page. If the change in load time is bigger than 2ms then there might be the issue with caching of the website. Sometimes the caching slows the load time for HTTPS websites. Also the issue could be with a lot of large images on your website, which takes more time to load with SSL certificate on.

The answer for this you got from a real test? I am curious how did you test and decide https sites' loading time is added 2ms if comparing with http sites?

[Hostens]

Had made some tests by installing certificates for the websites. You can check the overall load time with any third party tool and compare loading time after SSL certificate was installed. Usually the difference is not felt after the install. In some cases the loading time was felt longer even without the loading time test.

It is easy to test it before and after with any free certificate.

[DanielN]

There is literally no point worrying about this. You have to use SSL certs anyway.
People will trust your website more and Google will rank it higher.
Not having it is totally counterproductive at this time.