Safari 27 – scrolling stutters and becomes jerky on some websites

Question

Level 1

13 points

Safari 27 – scrolling stutters and becomes jerky on some websites

After updating to Safari 27 on macOS, I started noticing noticeable stuttering and jerky scrolling on some websites.

The issue is especially noticeable on pages with interactive elements. For example, on an online store category page, scrolling is smooth when the mouse cursor is positioned on the side of the page. However, when the cursor is over a product card that displays additional information or hover effects, scrolling becomes noticeably choppy and the entire page seems to stutter.

I have also noticed occasional scrolling stutters on YouTube and even on Google Search.

I tested the same websites in Google Chrome on the same Mac, and scrolling is smooth there.

Things I have already tried:

Disabled all Safari extensions — no difference.

Reset Safari's Feature Flags to their default settings — no difference.

Restarted Safari — the issue remains.

Tested the same pages in Chrome — no stuttering.

This seems to be related specifically to Safari 27/WebKit rendering or handling of interactive elements during scrolling.

Has anyone else noticed this after updating to Safari 27? Is there a known workaround or fix?

MacBook Air 15″

Posted on Sep 16, 2026 8:10 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 16, 2026 4:05 PM in response to Serz_ua

Yes, I am experiencing the exact same behaviour that you describe when using Safari. I am using a MacBook Neo and scrolling through websites in Safari was much smoother in MacOS 26. Media heavy web pages seem to struggle and stutter the worse. But even text only web pages still scroll less smoothly in MacOS 27.

Apparently this issue was identified during beta testing, according to some comments in forums that I have found. However, it has been mentioned that this issue only seems to affect displays that run at 60 Hz. MacBook Pro's and other 120 Hz displays apparently do not appear to have this issue.

I really hope that this issue is fixed soon, since probably ~90% of my MacBook Neo usage is Safari.

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Answer 2

Dill27

Level 1

36 points

Oct 23, 2026 4:08 PM in response to Serz_ua

I have noticed this too, especially on Amazon and YouTube. I would switch your browser to Brave and see if this works.

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Answer 3

55Hubert

Level 1

13 points

Oct 23, 2026 4:04 PM in response to 55Hubert

I just rebooted my iPad and it solved the jerking. Perhaps a reboot every few days is a solution.

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Answer 4

Sep 28, 2026 6:35 PM in response to HEMI558

I opened a ticket through the Feedback app on my Mac. But based on my research, that won't do any good because this issue has existed for several years already. Apple makes Safari so extremely efficient to save battery life even on Mac minis and iMacs, where that doesn't even matter. So Apple ignores the stuttering because battery life is more important to them. That makes Safari unusable, forcing you to fall back on Chrome- or Firefox-based browsers. Apple is moving further and further away from desktop PCs and is developing solely toward one operating system / one OS for all products and maximum efficiency in the mobile device space.

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Answer 5

Sep 16, 2026 10:37 PM in response to Serz_ua

Also, as a workaround, I am currently using the Brave browser (based on Chromium) which works perfectly smoothly. Will probably just continue to use Brave until Apple finally fixes Safari.

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