LagReveal

Description

When a homepage takes ten seconds to open, where did the visitor spend those seconds? LagReveal helps you separate the wait for WordPress to send the page from the time the browser spends downloading images, scripts and styles. Open a page as an administrator to investigate the WordPress side, then capture a logged-out visit to see how the public page loads.

Start with one slow page

1. Open Tools > LagReveal, enter a page URL on your site and click Measure current performance.
2. In Top Fixes, open a finding to see the timing behind it. If the HTML document is slow, open HTML response to separate connection time, the wait for the first byte and the HTML download. The response wait alone does not tell you which plugin caused it.
3. Use Database requests to find the slowest queries and Repeated database requests to find small queries that add up. Where available, LagReveal shows the calling plugin or theme, file and line. Administrators with file-editing permission can open supported files in the WordPress editor.
4. Open Loading waterfall to see when each file started and how long it took. Sort by duration to find long requests. For supported elements, the inspector can also show the matching HTML or Elementor widget so you can locate it on the page.

How to test as a visitor

A logged-in administrator may bypass your page cache. To see what a shopper or first-time reader receives, collect a second report from a private browser window:

1. Keep your administrator capture open. Select Test as a visitor, then Copy guest collector bookmark.
2. In your browser’s bookmark manager, create a bookmark named LagReveal Visitor Test. Paste the copied code into its URL field and save it. You create this bookmark once; it is not a tab in Chrome DevTools.
3. Open a fresh Incognito or Private window in the same browser. Visit the clean page URL shown in LagReveal without signing in. Wait for it to finish loading, then scroll or interact with any content you want included.
4. While still on that page, click the bookmark. It downloads lagreveal-guest.json. Opening the visitor tab in the administrator panel does not start a download.
5. Return to the administrator window. Under Test as a visitor > Import guest capture, choose the downloaded file. The Loading waterfall opens with the visitor’s timings. Click Capture again to return to the administrator measurements.

The visitor report shows browser measurements, including response wait and resource timings. It cannot see PHP or database queries. Use the administrator capture to investigate those. Guest imports must come from the same site origin and stay in the browser.

Try a change before applying it to visitors

Use Manage scripts & styles to test removing an optional script or stylesheet on a specific page. On WooCommerce stores you can also test the classic mini-cart fragment settings. Run Test optimizations, repeat the same interactions and compare a fresh capture. For a store, check adding and removing a product and refreshing the mini-cart before enabling visitor rules. Fresh installations leave visitor rules off.

Report privacy

Administrator reports are private to the capturing account and expire after 24 hours. LagReveal uses no external telemetry service. Exported files can contain URL paths, query structure and plugin or theme filenames; review them before sharing.