WordPress 6.4 to Introduce Twenty Twenty-Four Default Theme with Improved Performance
WordPress 6.4 is set to release a new default theme called Twenty Twenty-Four (TT4) in early November. This theme is expected to be more feature-rich than previous default themes, and contributors have been working on identifying potential performance improvements that can be made before the release.
Performance team contributor Felix Arntz, sponsored by Google, conducted several benchmarks comparing TT4 with the TT3 block theme. These benchmarks included overall Web Vitals covering both server-side (TTFB) and client-side (LCP-TTFB) performance, as well as a separate server-side load time benchmark. Arntz shared a summary of the data, which revealed some interesting insights.
For the home page, TT4 showed a 58.8% slower overall load time (LCP), a 93.5% slower client-side performance (LCP-TTFB), and a 71.8% slower server-timing (wp-total). On the other hand, for the singular post, TT4 exhibited a 3.9% slower overall load time (LCP), a 40.1% faster client-side performance (LCP-TTFB), and a 42.3% slower server-timing (wp-total).
Arntz explained that the reason TT4 is slower is because it provides more feature-rich content out of the box compared to TT3. He noted that the server-side performance difference between the two themes seems to be primarily due to the number of block editor features used by the theme, rather than any issues with the theme itself. TT4 includes only a single function of PHP logic but has more complex content and a larger number of patterns, which may contribute to the performance difference.
However, after just two weeks of work on specific tickets for flagged issues, performance contributors were able to make TT4 and other themes load more than 40% faster. Arntz expressed his excitement, stating that most, if not all, of the server-side performance concerns have been addressed through additional general performance fixes that have been implemented in the core.
In terms of server-timing benchmarks, comparing TT4 and TT3 with the latest core trunk, the TT4 home page loads in 85.91ms (10.0% slower than TT3) and the TT4 “Hello world!” post loads in 96.44ms (11.7% slower than TT3). These improvements indicate significant progress in addressing the performance issues.
While there are still some outstanding client-side performance enhancements, Arntz mentioned that these require more thought and time investment, so they have been planned for the 6.5 release.
WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 was recently released, and although the flagship Font Library feature has been postponed to the 6.5 release, this change will not affect Twenty Twenty-Four. The theme will ship with preselected fonts that are loaded from the theme assets, similar to previous default themes.
In conclusion, WordPress 6.4 is introducing the Twenty Twenty-Four default theme with improved performance compared to its predecessor. The benchmarks conducted by performance contributors have highlighted the areas where enhancements were needed, and significant progress has been made in addressing server-side performance concerns. While there are still some client-side performance improvements to be made, users can expect a faster and more feature-rich default theme with the upcoming WordPress release.
