Is NitroPack plugin Black Hat SEO for speed optimization

[opiates]

We are getting ready to launch our redesigned WP site and were considering using NitroPack performance optimization plugin, until some of our developers started ringing the alarm.

Here is what some in the SEO community are saying about the tool. The rendering of the website made with the NitroPack plugin in the Page Metric Test Tools is based entirely on the inline CSS and JS in the HTML file without taking into account additional numerous CSS or JS files loaded on the page. As a result, the final metric score does not include CSS and JavaScript files evaluation and parsing. So what they are saying is that a lot of websites with the NitroPack plugin never become interactive in the Page Metric Tools because all interactivity is derived from JavaScript and CSS execution. So, their "Time to Interactive" and "Speed Index" should be reported as equal to infinity.

Would Google consider this Black Hat SEO and start serving manual actions to sites using NitroPack? We are not ready to lose our hard-earned Google ranking.

Please, let me know your thoughts on the plugin. Is it simply JS and CSS "lazy loading" that magically offers the first real-world implementation that works magic and yields fantastic results, or is it truly a Black Hat attempt at cheating Google PageSpeed Insights numbers?

Thank you!

[alexhales278]

NitroPack Plugin is not a white hat technique but there is another Rumor spreading in the society that it reduce the website speed.

[SilvenaTT]

@seo-owl
Silvena from NitroPack here. There’s a lot of misleading information about our service. Here are all the myths debunked:
https://nitropack.io/blog/post/nitropack-false-claims

Your report about the rankings sounds odd. Could you please DM us the sites you tested?

Here is our FB: https://www.facebook.com/getnitropack
Twitter: https://twitter.com/getnitropack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nitropack/
Support: https://support.nitropack.io/hc/en-us/requests/new

We would love to take a look.
Regards!

[SilvenaTT]

@opiates
Silvena from NitroPack here.
There’s a lot of misleading information about our service. Here’re all the myths debunked:
https://nitropack.io/blog/post/nitropack-false-claims

Also, the first global Core Web Vitals report ranks NitroPack as a leading speed optimization solution (based on real-world data): https://nitropack.io/blog/post/web-vitals-tech-report-nitropack

If you want to learn more about our way of doing speed optimization, check the blog post here: https://nitropack.io/blog/post/site-speed-future-nitropack

Regards!

[seo.owl]

I'd like to follow this thread because I've heard similar things about Nitropack being a bit fake.

For me, I installed it on three sites. Three different themes.

On my Elementor/Astra theme, it completely F'd my rankings. Each time I deactivated it, I went back up in the rankings.

I'm not convinced nor sure how helpful it is and would love to hear what others are saying