Should you preload fonts for performance?

September 12, 2025

Code snippet showing a <link rel="preload"> tag for a font file with a red "X" and the caption “Maybe don't do this” in red handwritten-style text, suggesting a caution against this preload usage.

Everyone’s preloading fonts for faster sites. 🚀 But did you know it can secretly push your First Contentful Paint back instead? Let’s look at when preloading helps, when it hurts, and the simple rules to follow.

Source: Should you preload fonts for performance? | Erwin Hofman

Fonts can be large files. And we know loading large files can have a negative impact on performance and core web files. So here Erwin Hofman orcs, how can you improve the performance of pages that use embedded fonts? Should we pre-load our fonts for performance?