Google Lighthouse 13: New Insight-Based Audits Unveiled
▼ Summary
– Google has released Lighthouse 13, which consolidates audits into insights that align with Chrome DevTools’ newer model.
– The update is available via npm and Chrome Canary, with rollout to PageSpeed Insights and Chrome stable channel planned soon.
– Performance scores remain unchanged as the update focuses only on non-scored audits, replacing many legacy checks with insights.
– Several outdated or low-value audits were removed entirely, including first-meaningful-paint and font-size, without replacements.
– Users should update automation and dashboards to use new insight identifiers to avoid issues after the PSI update.
Google Lighthouse 13 has arrived, introducing a major shift in how it presents website performance data by consolidating numerous audits into streamlined insights. This change brings Lighthouse reports into closer alignment with the insight model already familiar to users of Chrome DevTools. Available immediately through npm and Chrome Canary, the update is expected to reach PageSpeed Insights within the coming week and will be included in the stable version of Chrome with version 143. Importantly, this update does not alter the way Lighthouse calculates performance scores, focusing its changes exclusively on non-scored audits.
A central feature of Lighthouse 13 is the extensive audit consolidation. Many traditional audits have been replaced with new “insights” that mirror the structure found in DevTools. For example, the layout-shifts audit is now called cls-culprits-insight, providing developers with a clearer picture of what causes cumulative layout shift. Similarly, the document-latency-insight now combines checks for redirects, server response times, and text compression into a single, more actionable view.
In the area of image optimization, the new image-delivery-insight replaces several previous checks for modern formats, image optimization, responsive images, and efficient animated content. For analyzing Largest Contentful Paint, two new insights, lcp-discovery-insight and lcp-phases-insight, offer a detailed breakdown, while interaction-to-next-paint-insight (INP) handles user interaction analysis. The older third-party summary has been superseded by the third-parties-insight, which more effectively illustrates the impact of external scripts.
Additional consolidated insights now cover DOM size, duplicated JavaScript, font display, legacy JavaScript, HTTP/2 and modern HTTPS usage, network dependency trees, render-blocking resources, caching policies, and viewport configuration.
Alongside these consolidations, several audits have been removed entirely because they are considered outdated, difficult to act upon, or offer little value in today’s web environment. Some were also cut due to their high computational cost during analysis. The list of removed audits includes first-meaningful-paint, font-size, offscreen-images, preload-fonts, uses-rel-preload, no-document-write, uses-passive-event-listeners, and third-party-facades.
There are a couple of minor differences from earlier previews of this release. Google decided to retain non-composited-animations and unsized-images as separate diagnostics, as they help identify issues that don’t directly contribute to CLS but are still useful for developers to see. Interestingly, font-size and preload-fonts were ultimately removed even though they weren’t on the initial list of planned removals.
For professionals who depend on Lighthouse for client reports, the new version means encountering fewer individual line items and more unified insights that directly correspond to what is seen in DevTools. While your performance scores should remain consistent after upgrading, any automated systems or dashboards that rely on specific audit identifiers will need updating to recognize the new insight names.
From an SEO perspective, the removal of the font-size audit underscores Google’s stance that font size is not a direct ranking factor, although text legibility remains a critical component of user experience. Looking forward, we can expect Lighthouse and DevTools to maintain this shared insight model. For those managing performance reports, it would be wise to begin mapping old audit IDs to the new insights now to prevent disruptions when PageSpeed Insights incorporates these changes.
(Source: Search Engine Journal)