Improving form processing speed w/ email confirmation?

I have a very basic contact form configured (name/email/message fields) and I used Will Browning’s helpful article as a point of reference in building the form submission function and request (using Axios.) I’m also using the option to send an email confirmation, with my hosting provider’s mail server settings defined in the config.yaml settings. Everything works as expected- form data is processed, email sent- it just often takes a while, sometimes several seconds. I find that the submission process tends to be much faster when no confirmation email is sent (i.e. no email defined in the form settings), which leads to a couple questions:

1.) If an email address is specified in form settings to receive a confirmation email, does the http request register as complete/successful only after the email is sent?

2.) If the above is true, is there a way to either a.) improve speed when an email address is defined, say by adjusting the http request/function? or b.) send a confirmation email a different way that doesn’t impact performance, say by using a webhook?

Ultimately, I need a way to receive confirmation emails for form submissions so I don’t have to manually check the form entries in Cockpit, but I also don’t want it to take too long for the form to process. Frankly, I don’t even need the form field data sent by email, I’d even opt for a basic function that sends an email from Cockpit simply indicating whenever a new form entry is created (that runs separately from the form processing/request itself.) Thanks for any insight here- I absolutely love Cockpit btw; thank you for all the fantastic work!!