Custom vs SmugMug — Platform Benchmark

51.8

Custom

254 sites

WINNER

31.4

SmugMug

12 sites

Score Summary

Avg AI Readability

52.2 37.7

Avg Security

37.2 33.3

Avg Efficiency

56.6 28.4

Avg Total Score

51.8 31.4

Avg Structure

47.1 19.4

Avg Load Complexity

67.6 34.8

Avg Lighthouse

54.9 31.7

Best Site Score

87.6 42.3

Worst Site Score

15.7 23.1

Custom SmugMug

Performance by Industry

Average total score for each platform within shared industries.

Industry	Custom	SmugMug
Architecture	—	—
Content Creation	—	—
Corporate-personal	—	32.7 3 sites
Design	—	—
Photography	—	31.0 9 sites

Comparison Insights

Overall Verdict

Custom significantly outperforms SmugMug by 20.4 points - a gap large enough to suggest structural differences in how each platform supports web quality.

Dimension Edge

Custom leads in: AI Readability, Security, Efficiency, Structure, Load Complexity, Lighthouse. SmugMug leads in: nada. Custom has a broader performance advantage across dimensions.

Opportunities for improvement

SmugMug could target AI Readability, Security, Efficiency, Structure, Load Complexity, Lighthouse to improve.

Industry-by-Industry Results

The platforms split industry wins evenly across 5 shared verticals - the overall score gap may be driven by a few outlier sites rather than a consistent pattern.

Sample Size Consideration

Custom has 21.2× more audited sites than SmugMug. Larger samples surface more variation and may pull averages toward the mean, so this comparison should be read with that in mind.