WordPress.org

This plugin captures real user metrics about what elements are displayed on the page across a variety of device form factors (e.g. desktop, tablet, and phone) in order to apply loading optimizations which are not possible with WordPress’s current server-side heuristics.
This plugin is a framework dependency which does not provide optimization functionality on its own. For that, please install the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/image-prioritizer/" rel="ugc">Image Prioritizer</a> and <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/embed-optimizer/" rel="ugc">Embed Optimizer</a> dependent plugins (among <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/labels/%5BPlugin%5D%20Optimization%20Detective" rel="nofollow ugc">others</a> to come from the WordPress Core Performance team). There are currently no settings and no user interface for this plugin since it is designed to work without any configuration.
Your site must currently have the REST API accessible to unauthenticated frontend visitors since this is how real user metrics are collected about pages on your site; nevertheless, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/1311" rel="nofollow ugc">exploration</a> is underway for providing alternative mechanisms for collecting the metrics. Also, please note that no metrics are currently collected from Safari since it does not yet support the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/LargestContentfulPaint" rel="nofollow ugc">Largest Contentful Paint</a> metric, but support for this <a href="https://web.dev/explore/learn-core-web-vitals" rel="nofollow ugc">Core Web Vitals</a> metric is coming this year <a href="https://webkit.org/blog/16458/announcing-interop-2025/#core-web-vitals" rel="nofollow ugc">via Interop 2025</a>.
Please refer to the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/blob/trunk/plugins/optimization-detective/docs/README.md" rel="nofollow ugc">full plugin documentation</a> for a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/blob/trunk/plugins/optimization-detective/docs/introduction.md" rel="nofollow ugc">technical introduction</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/blob/trunk/plugins/optimization-detective/docs/hooks.md" rel="nofollow ugc">filter/action hooks</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/performance/blob/trunk/plugins/optimization-detective/docs/extensions.md" rel="nofollow ugc">extensions</a> that show use cases and examples. You can also watch the talk from WordCamp Asia 2025: <a href="https://weston.ruter.net/2025/02/21/boosting-performance-with-optimization-detective/" rel="nofollow ugc">Boosting Performance with Optimization Detective</a>.

Optimization Detective

Provides a framework for leveraging real user metrics to detect optimizations for improving page performance.

akamai

There’s no question that web and mobile application performance affects user behavior — but how do you put that information to good use?
Using Real User Monitoring (RUM), Akamai’s mPulse captures and aggregates the performance and engagement metrics most important to your business in real time, giving you the real user intelligence needed to correlate the impact of performance on the bottom line, take immediate action as required, and feed critical information back into the development lifecycle.
All data is presented to you in a vivid, easy-to-understand and actionable format.
See more at: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/products/web-performance/mpulse-real-user-monitoring.jsp

mPulse Real User Measurement

How fast do your users think your site is, really?  How fast should it be?  How do you get there?

Optimization Detective vs mPulse Real User Measurement