Azure Dotnet Core 5 App loads slowly after not used for a while

Question

I have a dotnet core 5.0 web application that loads quickly when running on my local machine. When published to Azure, it also loads quickly. However, it is a portfolio application that only receives traffic from myself on occasion or an employer checking it out. When the app is idle for a while, then I visit it, I sometimes have 4-8 second load time for a simple login page. Otherwise, it loads very quickly once warmed up, even from another browser that hasn't cached the request. App memory is at 60% and CPU usage is low. I have the app set to "always on" mode, which supposedly does a GET request to the home page every 10 mins. However, I'm linking from my portfolio page to the login page of the app, not the home page, so I don't know if that makes any difference in keeping the app warmed up. Any ideas on how to speed up initial load after inactivity would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Technically Always On, should keep the App Service Warm.

When Always On is not turned on (default), the app is unloaded after 20 minutes without any incoming requests. The unloaded app can cause high latency for new requests because of its warm-up time. When Always On is turned on, the front-end load balancer sends a GET request to the application root every five minutes

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/configure-common#configure-general-settings

Can you have a look at the below article, it has some nice solutions:
https://www.telerik.com/blogs/nine-performance-tips-for-azure-app-services