Ping & Latency Test
Round-trip time to multiple servers, with stability over a sustained window — the metric that matters most for gaming and calls.
Live ping test
Sends repeated zero-byte requests to api.speedtest.doctor and times each round trip — average, best and worst.
Idle — press “Run ping test” to measure your latency.
What a ping test actually measures
Ping — or latency — is the round-trip time for a small packet to travel from your device to a server and back, measured in milliseconds (ms). It is the single most important number for anything real-time: online games, video calls, and VoIP. A connection can post a huge download figure and still feel sluggish if its latency is high or unstable. This test fires repeated requests to a nearby edge server and reports the average, the best and the worst round trip so you can see both the typical latency and how far it swings.
How to read your result
Lower is better. Use this as a rough guide for a wired connection — add a little headroom for Wi-Fi:
| Average ping | Verdict | What it's good for |
|---|---|---|
| < 30 ms | Excellent | Competitive gaming, crystal-clear calls |
| 30–60 ms | Good | Most games, smooth video meetings |
| 60–100 ms | Fair | Playable, but noticeable in fast shooters |
| > 100 ms | Poor | Laggy games, choppy calls |
A low average with a high worst value is a red flag: your line is fine on paper but spikes under the hood. Those spikes are what cause rubber-banding mid-game and the dreaded “your connection is unstable” warning on calls. Measure how much it swings with the jitter test, and check whether it balloons during downloads with the bufferbloat test.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a good ping for gaming?
- Under 30 ms feels instant for most competitive games, 30–60 ms is fine, 60–100 ms is playable, and over 100 ms starts to feel laggy. For fast shooters the stability of the ping matters as much as the raw number — see the jitter test.
- Why is my ping high even though my speed test is fast?
- Download speed (Mbps) and latency (ms) are different things. You can have a fast 1 Gbps line with high or unstable latency caused by Wi-Fi, a distant route, or bufferbloat. That is exactly why the number from a plain speed test does not tell the whole story.
- How does this browser ping test work?
- It sends repeated zero-byte HTTP requests to our self-hosted api.speedtest.doctor latency endpoint and times each round trip. It is not an ICMP ping like the command line, so it includes a little HTTP overhead, but it tracks real changes in latency well and needs no install.
- Should I test on Wi-Fi or cable?
- Test both. If your ping is much higher or spikier on Wi-Fi than on a wired connection, the problem is your local network, not your ISP. A wired connection is the gold standard for gaming and calls.
High ping? Don't guess — diagnose it
A single number rarely tells you why your latency is high. The Doctor runs the full panel — ping, jitter, packet loss and latency under load — then explains the likely cause and what to do about it.