Hello,

For those who can connect using ssh, what is you time to first byte?

Please show the average for 3 runs.

curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://inserturl.here

Mine is: 0,362

user@host:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.myboardurl.tld
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  195k    0  195k    0     0   450k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  452k
Connect: 0.006 TTFB: 0.397 Total time: 0.434
user@host:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.myboardurl.tld
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  195k    0  195k    0     0   560k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  565k
Connect: 0.005 TTFB: 0.338 Total time: 0.348
user@host:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.myboardurl.tld
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  195k    0  195k    0     0   535k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  537k
Connect: 0.004 TTFB: 0.353 Total time: 0.365

Is this good or bad? Let's see yours :)

wouldn't you have to run that from a 'nix client to the server?

Yes I do

on windows here so can't, will build a vm later tonight and run this to see

On my development forum,

kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0   905k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1510k
Connect: 0.064 TTFB: 0.153 Total time: 0.158 
kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0  1410k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1434k
Connect: 0.002 TTFB: 0.097 Total time: 0.102 
kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0  1483k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1542k
Connect: 0.004 TTFB: 0.094 Total time: 0.097 
kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0  1536k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1576k
Connect: 0.002 TTFB: 0.088 Total time: 0.093 
kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0  1507k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1526k
Connect: 0.002 TTFB: 0.090 Total time: 0.095

For those who would like to show us the results, can use a service like Gomez and choose the nearest server.

Thanks

 

On my development forum,

kirito@flare:~$ curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  143k    0  143k    0     0   905k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1510k
Connect: 0.064 TTFB: 0.153 Total time: 0.158 

Very good values :)

why not use webpagetest.org more geographic locations to test from as well :)

Yup, yup, webpagetest.org is the tool or the job, IMHO. My TTFB is terrible, about a second: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/130514_P3_W88/

I believe this is mostly due to nginx/php-fpm interaction. My understanding is that the way the FCGI protocol buffers output, it is basically not able to start sending the first byte until the whole page (or at least, a large part of it) has been completed.

robert

On Hostgator VPS my TTFB rated an F - Is that a typical issue with VPS? Or something I can correct?

[root@www] tmp >> curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  243k    0  243k    0     0  27.9M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  111M
Connect: 0.000 TTFB: 0.002 Total time: 0.009
[root@www] tmp >> curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  243k    0  243k    0     0  91.6M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  222M
Connect: 0.000 TTFB: 0.001 Total time: 0.003
[root@www] tmp >> curl -o /dev/null -w "Connect: %{time_connect} TTFB: %{time_starttransfer} Total time: %{time_total} n" http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  243k    0  243k    0     0  68.3M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  222M
Connect: 0.000 TTFB: 0.001 Total time: 0.003

It seems to me that time to first byte would be useless unless you have a PHP bottleneck problem.

 

It seems to me that time to first byte would be useless unless you have a PHP bottleneck problem.

PHP bottlenecks are specifically what this test identifies.. the time it takes to actually generate the response. For my site we generate responses really fast, but probably are a bit too script heavy to give quick load times. The default IPC weighs in at roughly 250KB where we have that jacked up to around 600KB.

TTFB when slow is usually more a problem with MySQL database backend than PHP as PHP has to wait for response from MySQL server ;)