Google Lighthouse Moves to Insight-Based Performance Audits in Chrome DevTools
Google is simplifying and streamlining how it delivers performance advice in Lighthouse, Chrome DevTools, and PageSpeed Insights. Starting mid‑2025, performance audits are switching to a new insights-based model. This means more clarity, less duplication, and better alignment across tools.
What’s Changing?
The new model replaces many traditional individual performance audits, like 'layout shifts,' 'First Meaningful Paint,' and 'unsized images', with grouped insights. For example:
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Layout shifts and related issues now appear under a single “CLS Culprits Insight”
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Some outdated audits, such as “First Meaningful Paint” and“Uses Passive Event Listeners”, are being retired completely Stan Ventures Empathy First Media.
The Rollout Timeline
Google has laid out a phased plan to help developers adapt:
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Lighthouse 12.6 Adds a toggle to switch between legacy audit mode and the new Insights mode Chrome for Developers Stan Ventures.
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Lighthouse 12.7 (June 2025): Changes default mode to Insight mode while still allowing users to switch back GitHub Chrome for Developers Stan Ventures.
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Lighthouse 13 (expected October 2025): Removes the toggle and drops old audit mode entirely, making insights the only available view GitHub Stan Ventures.
What Does Insight Mode Offer?
The new Insights model brings performance audits in line with Chrome DevTools’ Performance panel and PageSpeed Insights. According to Google, the goal is to unify performance advice across all platforms for a consistent workflow GitHub DebugBear.
Within DevTools, the new Insights sidebar allows visual, trace‑level information. For example:
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Render‑blocking requests are annotated directly on the performance timeline
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Clicking on the LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) marker reveals options like “LCP by phase” or “LCP request discovery”, to show what’s delaying key page elements DebugBear.
In Lighthouse reports, a clear “Insights” section will show consolidated recommendations, separate from standard “Diagnostics” audits Chrome for Developers Stan Ventures.
Why This Matters
If your workflows rely on Lighthouse names or structures, such as automated CI scripts, dashboards, or performance tracking, you’ll need to update them. Since audits are being merged or renamed, tests referencing deprecated audit IDs may break Stan Ventures.
But the benefits are compelling:
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Clearer guidance with fewer overlapping checks
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Consistent experience across DevTools, Lighthouse, and PageSpeed Insights
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Visual trace integrations make root-cause detection faster and more intuitive
Final Thoughts
By autumn 2025, Lighthouse will fully embrace this insights-driven style, making it simpler and more unified. For developers, performance analysts, and SEOs, it means clearer diagnostics but also a need to update reporting tools.