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Docs at the speed of light

Fern Docs are built from the ground up to be served instantly from the edge. They're the fastest docs we've tested, averaging 92 in Lighthouse (competitors average 73).

Faster docs on Fern

Make your docs fast

Why docs speed matters

Developers often read your docs on a phone or a slow connection while they decide whether to use your API. Most of the web is still slow there.

Most of the web is slow on phones

Only 43% of mobile sites pass Google's Core Web Vitals, according to the HTTP Archive Web Almanac.

Speed counts in search

Google's ranking systems use Core Web Vitals, so faster docs pages have a better chance of being found.

Fern Docs score in the top tier

11 of 17 Fern Docs sites we tested score 90 or above in mobile Lighthouse, the range Lighthouse rates good.

Sources: HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2024, Google Search Central

Faster than other docs platforms

We ran mobile Lighthouse on 37 live docs sites. Only sites on Fern Docs scored above 90.

Want the methodology? Read the engineering post.

Average mobile Lighthouse performance
0–4950–8990–100
All sites
17 sites
Fern Docs
1.5 s
188 ms
20 sites
Competing docs product
2.1 s
367 ms
Sites with few third-party scripts
12 sites
Fern Docs
1.5 s
43 ms
11 sites
Competing docs product
2.0 s
200 ms
Sites with many third-party scripts
5 sites
Fern Docs
1.5 s
538 ms
9 sites
Competing docs product
2.2 s
571 ms

Fast for readers, simple for your team

Fast on any phone

Fern Docs sites average 92 in mobile Lighthouse, even on an older phone over slow 4G.

Publish anytime

Readers keep the current version until the new one is ready, so publishing never slows them down.

Keep every feature

Search, Ask Fern, and login all work on static pages, and our team migrates you from your current platform within a week.

More secure by default

Give your security team less to review. Every page ships with a strict Content Security Policy, so browsers block any script you didn't publish. And every asset loads from your own domain, so there are no third-party hosts to approve.

Common questions about static docs

Want the engineering details? Read the post.

Five places docs sites get slow

  • Rendering

    Pages render on a server for each visit, so readers wait before anything appears.

    Every page is prebuilt when you publish and served as finished HTML.

  • Distance

    Pages come from one region, so readers far from it wait longer.

    Pages are served from the edge, close to every reader.

  • Publishing

    A new publish clears the cache, so the next readers get a slow page.

    Each publish builds a complete new version, and readers keep the current one until it's ready.

  • Interactive features

    Search, chat, and login scripts load first and hold up the page.

    Search, Ask Fern, and login load separately, so they never hold up the rest of the page.

  • Assets

    Fonts, images, and scripts load from other hosts, adding extra connections.

    Every asset loads from your own domain.

Make your docs this fast

A Fern engineer generates a preview from your spec and walks you through it on the call. No sales pitch, no slide deck.

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Fern is part of the Postman Agent Stack: