[CASE STUDY] 100/97 Lighthouse on High‑Traffic News Portal WITHOUT CDN — Pure LSCache + LSWS Optimization

WebPrestige

WebPrestige

New Member
#1
#1
Hello everyone,
I would like to share some performance results from a WordPress news site (protinews.com.gr) running on LiteSpeed Web Server with LSCache. The site uses the Newspaper theme and receives heavy daily traffic with constant updates. No CDN is used at the moment.
I am posting this mainly to discuss the LSCache configuration and server tuning that helped us reach very good Lighthouse scores on both desktop and mobile.
Desktop results (March 2026): LCP 1.9s, INP 16ms, TBT 20ms, CLS 0.05, Speed Index 0.7s, Performance score 100.
Mobile results: LCP 2.4s, INP 87ms, TBT 0ms, CLS 0.00, Speed Index 1.8s, Performance score 97.
These numbers were achieved without Cloudflare or any external CDN. Only LSCache and server‑level optimization were used.
Some of the techniques applied:
  • public cache for all visitors
  • private cache for logged‑in users
  • ESI for dynamic blocks
  • guest mode enabled
  • selective JS defer
  • HTML/CSS/JS optimization
  • Brotli compression
  • HTTP/3 enabled
  • PHP LSAPI tuning
  • reduced DOM size
  • removed heavy theme modules
The goal was to see how far LSCache can go on its own before adding QUIC.cloud. . The next step will be enabling QUIC.cloud CDN to improve TTFB and global delivery.
I am sharing this to exchange ideas with the community. If anyone has suggestions for further improvements or wants more details about the configuration, I would be happy to discuss.


Happy to answer questions or share more configuration details if needed.
 

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serpent_driver

serpent_driver

Well-Known Member
#2
#2
A PageSpeed score has nothing to with "Speed of Page" or performance or good or bad the LSWS configuration is. PageSpeed measures how fast the content is displayed AFTER the loading assets are displayed in browser window or in other words, PageSpeed measures how fast a page "feels". PageSpeed (and page optimization) is just browser cosmetic. Learn more about this narrative: https://www.cachecrawler.com/Blog/W...nce-Doesnt-Start-With-Optimization::6601.html

Or more uncomfortable truths about PageSpeed and optimization. https://www.cachecrawler.com/Blog:::42.html
 
WebPrestige

WebPrestige

New Member
#3
#3
Thanks for your reply. I understand your point about PageSpeed. In my case the site is on shared hosting, so I can’t adjust any server settings. The only area I can work on is the frontend, and that’s why I’m checking LCP, CLS and INP. These affect the user experience directly. If you have any tips for improving this under shared hosting limitations, I’d appreciate it.
 
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