Ping Test

How to check your ping

1. Choose how long to test: 10 seconds for a quick check, 30 or 60 seconds to catch occasional lag spikes.
2. Keep Nearest server to test your own connection, or pick Google to compare with a second network.
3. Press Start ping test and leave the page open. Each bar on the chart is one reading; amber bars are spikes and red bars are requests that never came back.
4. Read the median ping, jitter and lost count, then the verdicts for gaming, calls and streaming.
5. To find the cause of lag, run it again on a cable instead of Wi-Fi, and once while someone else streams or downloads.

What the results mean

• Ping is the round trip time in milliseconds for a small request to reach the server and come back. The median is the typical value; the lowest shows what the line can do when nothing else is happening.
• Jitter is the average change between one reading and the next. Under 5 ms is very steady, under 15 ms is good, and over 30 ms causes choppy calls and rubber-banding in games, even when the average ping looks fine.
• 95% under is the value 95 out of 100 readings stayed below. A big gap between this and the median means regular lag spikes.
• Spikes counts readings more than double the median (plus 20 ms). A few in a minute is normal on Wi-Fi; dozens point to interference, a busy network or a weak signal.
• Lost counts requests with no answer within 1.5 seconds. Any loss on a cable is a fault worth reporting; on Wi-Fi it usually means a weak signal.

How this browser ping test works

Browsers are not allowed to send the "ping" (ICMP) packets that the command line tool uses, so the page sends a tiny web request over an open connection and times the reply. With Nearest server it talks to the closest Cloudflare data center and uses the browser's own precise timing, minus the server's processing time, so the result is very close to a real ping. The Google option times a tiny request to Google's servers from start to finish, which adds a millisecond or two of browser overhead.

Your ping in a game also depends on where the game server is. A server in another country adds the distance: roughly 1 ms for every 100 km of cable each way, plus the routing in between. That is why a game can show 120 ms when this test shows 15 ms. To check your connection, use this test; to choose a region, use the ping shown in the game.

Ping, latency and lag: the difference

Latency is the delay itself; ping is the usual way to measure it, as a round trip. Lag is what you feel when latency is high or jumps around. Two connections with the same 30 ms average can feel very different: one steady at 30 ms, the other swinging between 10 and 150 ms. The swing is jitter, and it is why this test draws every reading instead of showing one number. Download speed is a different thing again: a 1,000 Mbps line can still have bad ping, and a 20 Mbps line can have excellent ping.

Common problems and fixes

High ping or spikes only on Wi-Fi

Use a network cable for gaming if you can. If not, move closer to the router, use the 5 GHz band, and keep the router in the open, away from microwaves, cordless phones and thick walls.

Ping jumps when someone streams or downloads

This is bufferbloat: the router lets a queue build up. Turn on SQM, QoS or "gaming mode" in the router settings. The internet speed test grades it by measuring ping while the line is full.

Lost requests on a cable

Restart the modem and router, check the cable and its plug, and test again. If loss stays above 1% on a cable, contact your provider with a screenshot of the chart.

Ping is fine here but high in one game

The game server is far away or busy. Choose a closer region in the game settings. A VPN can sometimes give a shorter route, but usually adds ping.