Ping test

Measure your ping (latency), jitter, and packet loss to servers around the world. No download or upload test — just a focused look at how responsive your connection is.

Ping, latency, and jitter explained

Ping (also called latency) measures how long it takes data to travel from your device to a server and back. Lower is better. This page focuses only on ping so you can see your current latency, jitter, and packet loss at a glance.

What does ping mean?

When you click anything online, your device sends a small packet to a remote server and waits for a response. Ping is the round-trip time for that exchange, measured in milliseconds (ms). It is independent of your download or upload speed — a 1 Gbps connection with 150 ms ping will still feel slow in real-time apps like games and video calls.

What is a good ping?

A good ping depends on what you do online. Under 20 ms is excellent and matches what competitive gamers aim for. 20–50 ms is good for any online activity, including FPS games. 50–100 ms is fine for browsing, video calls, and most casual games. 100–150 ms starts to feel laggy in real-time apps. Anything above 150 ms is usually too slow for live gaming or smooth video calls, though it's still fine for streaming or downloads.

Jitter and packet loss

Jitter is the variation between consecutive ping samples. A steady 50 ms ping feels much better than ping that bounces between 20 ms and 120 ms. High jitter causes stuttering in voice calls, rubber-banding in games, and inconsistent video quality. Good connections keep jitter under 5 ms; under 15 ms is acceptable. Packet loss — pings that never come back — is even worse than high latency, because the application has to wait for a retransmission.

Why the server location matters

Distance is the single biggest factor in ping. Light travels fast, but data still takes time to cross a continent. A server in your own city might give you 5–15 ms, while one on another continent often adds 100–200 ms — no router or ISP can fix that. This test picks the closest available server automatically, but you can choose a region manually to see how location changes your latency.

Wi-Fi vs. wired ping

Wi-Fi typically adds 5–30 ms of ping and causes most of the jitter people see in everyday use. For the most accurate results, run this test on a wired Ethernet connection. If you must use Wi-Fi, move closer to the router, switch to the 5 GHz band, and pause any large downloads on other devices.

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When ping matters most

Frequently asked questions about ping

Ping is the round-trip time for a small data packet between your device and a server, measured in milliseconds. It tells you how responsive your connection is — lower ping means less delay between your action and the server's response. Ping is also called latency.
Under 20 ms is excellent, 20–50 ms is good, 50–100 ms is acceptable for most uses, and above 100 ms starts to feel laggy in real-time activities. Competitive gamers usually want to stay under 30 ms.
Aim for ping under 30 ms for competitive shooters (Valorant, CS2, Apex), under 50 ms for most other online games, and under 100 ms is playable for MMOs and turn-based games. See our gaming speed guide for per-game targets.
Ping is the time data takes to travel. Download and upload speeds measure how much data can be transferred per second. They are independent: you can have very fast download speed and still have terrible ping, or a slow connection with low ping. For gaming and video calls, ping matters more than raw speed. For streaming and downloads, speed matters more.
120 ms is on the high side. It's still fine for browsing, streaming, and most MMOs or strategy games, but you'll likely notice delay in fast-paced shooters and video calls. If you're seeing 120 ms when the server is nearby, something is off — try Ethernet or check for background traffic.
Jitter is the variation between successive ping samples. Low jitter (under 5 ms) means a stable, predictable connection. High jitter causes voice calls to glitch, video to stutter, and games to feel inconsistent even when the average ping looks fine.
Wi-Fi typically adds 5–30 ms compared to a wired Ethernet connection — and, more importantly, it adds most of the jitter you'll see in everyday use. The extra latency comes from contention with other devices on the same channel, retransmissions, and the radio handshakes that don't happen on a cable. To see the difference on your own setup, run this test once on Wi-Fi and once over Ethernet.
This page sends short HEAD requests to multiple Cloudflare edge servers around the world, finds the closest one, then runs a series of timed requests to that server. The round-trip times are aggregated into minimum, average, maximum, jitter, and packet loss. Everything runs in your browser — no app or plugin needed.
No. Ping is the same idea as round-trip latency. It used to refer specifically to ICMP ping packets sent at the operating-system level, but in everyday use the two terms mean the same thing: how long a round trip takes between you and a server.
Generally no. Ping is determined by the physical distance to the server, the quality of the routes in between, and your local network (Wi-Fi or Ethernet). Upgrading from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps will not lower your ping if those factors are unchanged. A wired connection, a closer server, and a less congested network help far more than raw bandwidth.
If your ping number looks fine but you still see lag, the cause is usually jitter or packet loss. A steady 60 ms connection feels smoother than one that swings between 20 ms and 200 ms. This test shows jitter and loss so you can spot an unstable connection that a single-shot ping number would miss.
Common causes: Wi-Fi interference or distance from the router, a congested network with too many devices, background uploads or cloud syncing, an overloaded ISP at peak hours, or an outdated router. Try plugging in via Ethernet, pausing other downloads, and restarting your router. If ping is still high, the problem may be your ISP's route to the test server.