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Harry Roberts provides a lot of detail about when/how to use ‘Critical CSS’ as a performance optimization – and some strong warnings that it might not be worth the effort.

I have long held very strong opinions about the Critical CSS pattern. In theory, in a perfect world, with all things being equal, it’s demonstrably a Good Idea™. However, in practice, in the real world, it often falls short as a fragile and expensive technique to implement, which seldom provides the benefits that many developers expect.

I have so far avoided this pattern, as I’ve never seen an approach that looked reliable & maintainable. Glad to see I’m not missing out on something essential.

This link brought to you by my (unwarranted & self-serving) sense of vindication. 😅