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Unused CSS VS Google Lighthouse

Compare Unused CSS VS Google Lighthouse and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Unused CSS logo Unused CSS

Easily find and remove unused CSS rules

Google Lighthouse logo Google Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages.
  • Unused CSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-13
  • Google Lighthouse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-02

Unused CSS features and specs

  • Performance Optimization
    Removing unused CSS can lead to faster page load times, improving user experience and potentially boosting SEO rankings.
  • Reduced File Size
    By eliminating unused CSS, the overall file size of stylesheets is reduced, which can decrease bandwidth usage and server load.
  • Improved Maintainability
    Cleaned-up CSS makes it easier for developers to read and maintain the stylesheet, reducing the complexity of future updates.
  • Fewer Rendering Issues
    By having only the necessary CSS, the likelihood of rendering issues and style conflicts is minimized, ensuring a more consistent design across different browsers and devices.

Possible disadvantages of Unused CSS

  • Potential Over-removal
    There is a risk of mistakenly removing CSS that is conditionally used (e.g., dynamic content or styled via JavaScript), which can lead to broken styles on the website.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    Setting up tools to analyze and trim unused CSS can be complex, requiring time and technical expertise to configure properly.
  • Regular Maintenance
    Web applications that frequently change or add new content may require ongoing checks to ensure CSS remains optimal, which could increase maintenance efforts.
  • Risk of False Positives
    Automated tools might misidentify CSS as 'unused' if they're used in specific contexts not covered during the analysis phase, potentially leading to functionality issues.

Google Lighthouse features and specs

  • Comprehensive Audits
    Lighthouse performs a wide range of audits including performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices, providing a holistic view of a website's overall health.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source tool, Google Lighthouse allows for transparency and flexibility, letting developers contribute to its improvement or customize it for their own use cases.
  • Automated
    Lighthouse can run automated audits on a site, saving time and effort compared to manual testing methods, and ensuring consistency in audit results.
  • Actionable Recommendations
    Lighthouse provides actionable recommendations and specific guidance on how to fix identified issues, helping developers and site owners make meaningful improvements.
  • Integration Friendly
    Lighthouse can be integrated into various development workflows and CI/CD processes through its CLI, Node module, or browser extension, enhancing its usability in diverse environments.

Possible disadvantages of Google Lighthouse

  • Performance Fluctuations
    Lighthouse performance scores can vary depending on different factors like network speed, hardware, and server response times, making it challenging to get consistent results.
  • Limited Context
    While Lighthouse provides specific issues, it may not fully account for the context of the website, potentially leading to recommendations that are not always the best fit for every scenario.
  • Not Real-User Data
    Lighthouse audits are based on synthetic testing, which might not always reflect real-user experiences accurately, limiting insights into how actual users interact with the site.
  • Learning Curve
    Less experienced developers may face a learning curve in understanding and implementing the recommendations provided by Lighthouse, particularly for more complex issues.
  • Dependency on Chrome
    As Lighthouse is built to work with Chrome, it may not fully capture site performance or issues when accessed through other browsers, potentially missing cross-browser compatibility problems.

Analysis of Google Lighthouse

Overall verdict

  • Google Lighthouse is an excellent tool for web developers and site owners looking to enhance their site's quality and performance. Its comprehensive audits make it an indispensable resource for staying updated with web standards and delivering a superior user experience.

Why this product is good

  • Google Lighthouse is a popular and powerful open-source tool developed by Google that helps developers analyze and improve the performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices of their web applications. It provides detailed reports and actionable insights, which are essential for optimizing web experiences across devices and platforms.

Recommended for

  • Web developers
  • SEO specialists
  • Webmasters
  • Digital marketing professionals
  • Small business owners managing their own sites

Unused CSS videos

UnCSS your CSS! Removing Unused CSS with PostCSS & Parcel

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to Remove Unused CSS code from Joomla Web Pages - 👀 WMW 109

Google Lighthouse videos

How to Use Google Lighthouse for SEO Audits

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Unused CSS and Google Lighthouse)
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Website Monitoring
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Performance Monitoring
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Lighthouse seems to be a lot more popular than Unused CSS. While we know about 95 links to Google Lighthouse, we've tracked only 1 mention of Unused CSS. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Unused CSS mentions (1)

  • Top 15 Tools for Frontend Developers: Optimize Your Workflow
    Easily clean up your unused CSS rules with UnusedCSS. This tool scans your stylesheets and identifies CSS rules that are not being used in your project. By removing these unused rules, you can reduce the size of your CSS files, improving load times and overall performance. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago

Google Lighthouse mentions (95)

  • How to Optimize CSS for Faster Page Load Speed
    This keeps the important stuff loading first, and the rest comes in quietly later. --- ### 7. Audit With Lighthouse + DevTools You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Use: - Chrome DevTools → **Coverage tab** to see unused CSS - [Google Lighthouse](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/) → Performance Score - [PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) → Mobile + Desktop audit --- ###... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building Accessible Angular Applications (WCAG, ARIA)
    Use high-contrast colors and visible focus indicators. Tools like axe or Lighthouse can help audit contrast ratios. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • React SEO: How to Build Search-Friendly Pages in React
    By all means, every advantage listed on the previous topics can be achieved with vanilla JavaScript and other tools. However, SSGs like Gatsby and Next.js will abstract the hassle from you to the point that the standard Gatsby application is born with a 100 SEO score on Lighthouse, Google’s performance analyzer. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
    Lighthouse Developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse Audit site performance, accessibility, and SEO. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 🚀 Stop Slowing Down Your Website! Find & Remove Unused JavaScript Now
    Lighthouse: Google’s performance tool that flags unused JavaScript (Run Lighthouse). - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Unused CSS and Google Lighthouse, you can also consider the following products

CSS Peeper - Smart CSS viewer tailored for Designers.

PageSpeed Insights - PageSpeed is addon for ...

Purgecss - Easily remove unused CSS

GTmetrix - GTmetrix is a free tool that analyzes your page's speed performance. Using PageSpeed and YSlow, GTmetrix generates scores for your pages and offers actionable recommendations on how to fix them.

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

WebPagetest - Run a free website speed test from multiple locations around the globe using real browsers...