Stop worrying about Time To First Byte (TTFB)

Time To First Byte (TTFB) is a common metric used to evaluate web server response times, but it may not be the most accurate or helpful measure. TTFB measures the duration from when an HTTP request is made to when the first byte of the page is received by the browser. However, popular web testing sites often report TTFB as the time the first byte of the HTTP response is received, which can be misleading because response headers are generated quickly and do not necessarily reflect the actual content download time. Furthermore, TTFB can be affected by factors such as compression, where enabling gzip compression may increase TTFB but decrease overall page load time. Instead of relying solely on TTFB, it is more important to focus on optimizing end-user experience and measuring metrics like real end-user page visible time.