How to test actual page speed delivery?

[stevelibby]

I have a website thats doing quite well, however im on a shared platform.
My question is how can i tell if pages are not being delivered fast enough or for that matter even being delivered?
My web logs dont point to anything irregular but then im not entirely sure what im looking for.
I have tried some of these page speed page tests, how accurate are they?

[encyclo]

First step is to try the YSlow plugin for Firefox:

[developer.yahoo.com...]

or Google's Page Speed plugin:

[code.google.com...]

These tools are for measuring in-browser load speed, which is the most important metric for site users.

[phranque]

you can also get some timing information using the Timeline Pane in the Safari Developer Tools [developer.apple.com] Web Inspector and the Opera Dragonfly [opera.com] Developer Tools.

[Kivo]

webpagetest.org is a good site for getting a waterfall view on what components of your page are taking time to load and slowing your site down.