Free Internet Speed Test
Measure your real download speed, upload speed, and ping. The test runs for about 30 seconds and uses Cloudflare's global network for accurate results.
What This Test Measures
How fast your connection receives data. Affects streaming, browsing, and file downloads. Most home plans have more download than upload bandwidth.
How fast your connection sends data. Critical for video calls, cloud backups, and sharing files. Typically lower than download on home connections.
Round-trip time to the test server in milliseconds. Under 20ms is excellent. Above 100ms causes noticeable lag in calls and games. Lower is always better.
Run the test while on Ethernet for best accuracy. Close other tabs. Test 2-3 times and average the results. Results vary throughout the day.
Speed Requirements by Activity
| Activity | Minimum | Good |
|---|---|---|
| Web browsing and email | 1 Mbps | 10 Mbps |
| HD streaming (1080p) | 5 Mbps | 15 Mbps |
| 4K streaming | 25 Mbps | 50 Mbps |
| Video calls (Zoom, Teams) | 3 Mbps both ways | 10 Mbps both ways |
| Online gaming | 3 Mbps / <50ms | 15 Mbps / <20ms |
| Multiple users | 25 Mbps | 100+ Mbps |
Reading Your Result Honestly
Before blaming your ISP, know what you're actually measuring. A speed test over Wi-Fi measures your Wi-Fi at that exact spot as much as your internet line. Test standing next to the router and again from the sofa, on many home networks those two numbers differ by 3x or more, and neither one is "wrong". The line is fine; the air between you and the router is the bottleneck.
Getting maybe 85-95% of the advertised plan speed over Ethernet is normal, overhead eats the rest. Getting half of it at peak evening hours but full speed at 7 am points to congestion, either your ISP's or your own household's. And if download looks fine but everything still feels sluggish, look at ping and not bandwidth: a 400 Mbps line with 150 ms latency feels worse in daily use than a 50 Mbps line with 10 ms.
One number nobody advertises but everyone feels: bufferbloat. That's when ping spikes the moment someone uploads a big file or streams, because the router queues packets badly. If video calls stutter whenever backups run, thats the likely culprit, and QoS settings on the router usually help more than a faster plan would.
Slow everywhere, even next to the router, even on cable? Work through the slow Wi-Fi checklist before calling support, it covers the usual suspects in order of likelihood.
Speed Test FAQ
Why do different speed test sites show different numbers?
Different test servers, different routes, different measurement styles. Ookla picks a nearby server which often shows the best-case number; Cloudflare and LibreSpeed measure to their networks, which better reflects real browsing. Differences of 10-20% between sites are completely normal. What matters is testing the same way every time, so you can compare your own results over time.
Why is my phone slower than my laptop on the same Wi-Fi?
Phones have smaller antennas and often connect with fewer Wi-Fi streams than laptops. A phone testing at half your laptop's speed is expected behaviour, not a problem. Older phones also lack newer Wi-Fi standards entirely.
Does the test use my data allowance?
Yes. A full run transfers a few hundred MB on fast connections. On unlimited home broadband nobody cares, but on a metered mobile connection you might, so maybe don't run it twenty times in a row on cellular.
My speed is fine but a specific site or game is slow. Why?
A speed test measures the pipe between you and the test server. A slow game server, a struggling streaming CDN or a bad route to one specific service can all feel like "slow internet" while every test comes back perfect. If only one thing is slow, the problem is almost never your connection.