Business
South Africa’s Fastest News Sites in 2025 and What That Means for Readers
South Africans move quickly when news breaks. Whether it is a big transfer rumour, a political curveball, or a storm warning rolling in, people expect their favourite news sites to open without hesitation. A site that hangs for even a few seconds can lose readers who simply swipe back and choose another source. It is a small decision that has become a big part of how digital newsrooms compete for attention.
Recent testing by MyBroadband painted a fresh picture of which local news platforms are winning the race for speed in 2025. Using multiple industry tools, including PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and Uptrends, the team compared real loading times and overall performance scores across the country’s most visited news websites. The findings offer a revealing look at how South Africans experience the news before they even start reading it.
SuperSport leads the pack with the quickest pages in the country
The surprise standout was SuperSport, whose site recorded an average load time of only 1.6 seconds. Sports fans are famously unforgiving when they miss a live update, and SuperSport’s parent company, Canal Plus, has clearly invested in making sure its pages appear almost instantly.
Right behind it was BusinessTech, followed by Newsday and Daily Investor. All of these platforms consistently loaded in under three seconds. That speed is considered the gold standard in modern web usability. Even small improvements in hosting or image size can make a noticeable difference to the impatient thumb of a mobile user tapping through their morning updates.
MyBroadband itself and Netwerk24 also fell into this quick group. Their average loading times hovered around 2.8 seconds, keeping them competitive despite offering heavier content categories.
Scores tell a deeper story than speed alone
Load time is the number everyone likes to look at, but it is not the full picture. The testing included multiple performance scores that measure how different parts of a website behave as a page loads.
These scores consider elements such as the time it takes for the biggest visual block on the page to appear, how soon the first piece of content shows up, and how long until the site becomes interactive. Scripts, cookies, and the overall size of a page all affect this score.
Here, News24 and Netwerk24 came out on top, achieving the highest average performance ratings of all the major sites tested. News24 scored eighty-nine percent, and Netwerk24 scored eighty-six point eight percent. Even though News24’s load time was slower at 4.3 seconds, the overall user experience still ranked among the best in the country.
Daily Maverick, BusinessTech, TopAuto, and Maroela Media also earned respectable performance scores, proving that a slightly slower website can still feel smooth and dependable.
The slowest experience belonged to Maroela Media, but not without context
At the opposite end of the list, Maroela Media recorded an average load time of 9.8 seconds. In internet terms, that is long enough for many users to abandon the page. Heavy homepage graphics, large image banners, or additional scripts may be playing a role here. Even so, Maroela Media’s average performance score remained solid at seventy-four point two percent, showing that once the site loads, it functions well.
Why this matters for readers in 2025
South Africans are browsing on everything from high-end fibre to patchy mobile data, so loading speed continues to shape how people consume news. A slow connection slows every site, but the faster ones still maintain an advantage. Readers often expect a story to appear immediately, especially during breaking news cycles on social media.
In a competitive media landscape, shaving off a single second can mean the difference between keeping a reader and losing them to another publication. Speed has become as important as accuracy and storytelling.
Average loading times and scores across major SA news websites
SuperSport loaded in 1.57 seconds with an average score of 69 percent
BusinessTech loaded in 2.22 seconds with an average score of 75.75 percent
Newsday loaded in 2.43 seconds with an average score of 72.50 percent
Daily Investor loaded in 2.76 seconds with an average score of 70.25 percent
MyBroadband loaded in 2.81 seconds with an average score of 68.50 percent
Netwerk24 loaded in 2.81 seconds with an average score of 86.75 percent
Daily Maverick loaded in 3.10 seconds with an average score of 76.75 percent
IOL loaded in 3.91 seconds with an average score of 68.50 percent
News24 loaded in 4.30 seconds with an average score of 89.00 percent
The South African loaded in 5.10 seconds with an average score of 68.50 percent
TopAuto loaded in 6.39 seconds with an average score of 74.50 percent
Maroela Media loaded in 9.83 seconds with an average score of 74.25 percent
The bottom line
Page speed has quietly become one of the strongest battlegrounds in South African media. SuperSport may be the quickest, and News24 may offer the best overall experience, but the real winner is the reader who benefits from a more responsive digital news environment.
As South Africans continue to rely on mobile data and fast updates, speed will remain a defining factor in how they choose where to get their news.
Also read: Wanatu Struggles with App Bugs and High Prices Despite Safety Reputation
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Source: MyBroadband
Featured Image: Adobe Stock
