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title: "First Meaningful Paint (Help Center / Glossary / Metrics)"
canonical: "https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/metrics/first-meaningful-paint/"
---

Breadcrumbs: [Home](https://www.rumvision.com/?format=md) > [Help Center](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/?format=md) > [Glossary](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/?format=md) > [Metrics](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/metrics/?format=md) > First Meaningful Paint

# First Meaningful Paint

The FMP aims to measure the time between the start of a navigation and the paint after which the biggest above-the-fold layout change has happened and web fonts have loaded.

> This metric used to be available in [RUM](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/monitoring/real-user-monitoring/?format=md) & [synthetic monitoring](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/monitoring/synthetic-monitoring/?format=md), but has been dropped

The First Meaningful Paint (FMP) metric is the predecessor of the Largest Contentful Paint.

## Nuances of the First Meaningful Paint metric

There are some important nuances when it comes to the First Meaningful Paint metric:

- **inconsistent results**  
     FMP wasn't as straight forward and clear as the LCP metric. So, the FMP metric could vary quite a bit per pageload.
- **FMP preference**  
     Nevertheless, FMP is considered a better metric by some as the largest element on a page isn't always most important.
 
So, in some cases, actually knowing the FMP might be convenient. But there is a similar solution offering you more control and more consistent results.

### Custom tracking via element timing

A use case is wanting to track the loading or rendering times of elements that aren't an LCP candidate. For example your blog heading, instead of its background image. Nowadays, using [element timing](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/monitoring/settings/custom-performance-timing/?format=md#element-timing) is the advised strategy. It's a solution that is often [used by site speed experts](https://www.rumvision.com/for-whom/site-speed-experts/?format=md), where RUMvision offers easy integration.

## Continue reading about First Meaningful Paint

As First Meaningful Paint has been deprecated since [Lighthouse](https://www.rumvision.com/help-center/glossary/monitoring/lighthouse/?format=md) v6, you might not want to learn more about this metric. Nevertheless, you could read about:

- Erwin's blog article announcing [LCP metric replacing FMP (and why)](https://www.erwinhofman.com/blog/performance-metrics-lcp-replacing-fmp/);
- [developer.chrome.com](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/first-meaningful-paint/).