How to test site speed?

Question

I'm looking to measure how fast my site is processed. Is there any software out there that can do this?

If it depends on the server, is there any way to monitor the speed from my localhost (purely CPU load?)

Answer 1

I usually use the timer_stop() function via the WordPress 'shutdown' hook, like this:

// Grab the page load time upon WordPress shutdown.
function page_load_time() {

    echo '<p>Page load time: '.timer_stop(0, 5).' seconds.</p>';
}
add_action( 'shutdown', 'page_load_time' );

Answer 2

Use timer_stop() just before </body>

If you want to see the execution time of each SQL query too, define('SAVEQUERIES', true) in your wp-config, and do a var_dump($GLOBALS['wpdb']->queries) in your footer.