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Internet speed test

Measure your download speed, upload speed and ping, usually in under a minute, then see in plain English what the numbers mean for streaming, video calls and working from home.

Download—Mbps
Upload—Mbps
Ping—ms
Jitter—ms

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Mbps

It is the number in your plan’s name or on your bill, such as 25, 50 or 100. Enter it and each result shows how much of that speed you are getting. It stays in this browser.

A speed test uses data. To measure a fast line it has to move large files: under 20 MB on a slow line, about 70 to 320 MB on a connection of 25 to 100 Mbps, more on faster ones, and as much as 1.3 GB on a gigabit line. Each result shows what that test used. On mobile data or a capped plan, tick Use less data first. That run is a little less exact on fast connections.

🔒 The test runs between your browser and Cloudflare’s test servers. Your results are not sent to Digital Greenhouse.

What the four numbers mean

  • Download is how fast things arrive: web pages, video, files, app updates. It is the number internet plans are sold on.
  • Upload is how fast things leave: your picture and voice on a video call, email attachments, photo and file backups. It is usually much lower than download, and it is the first thing to run out when you work from home.
  • Ping (also called latency) is the delay for a tiny message to reach the server and come back, in thousandths of a second. Lower is better. It decides how instant calls and games feel, whatever the speed.
  • Jitter is how much the ping varies from one moment to the next. A steady connection has low jitter. High jitter makes call audio choppy.

Speeds are shown in megabits per second (Mbps), the unit providers use. File sizes are in megabytes, and there are eight bits in a byte, so a 100 Mbps line downloads about 12.5 megabytes of a file each second.

How to get a fair result

  1. Test on a cable if you can. Plug a computer into the modem or router with a network cable. That measures the line itself. A Wi-Fi test measures the line and your Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi is very often the slower of the two.
  2. Pause everything else. Streaming on the TV, cloud backups, game downloads and other people’s devices all share the same line.
  3. Turn off any VPN for the test. A VPN sends your traffic the long way round.
  4. Test more than once, at different times. Evenings from about 7pm to 11pm are the busiest hours. Three or four tests across a day tell you far more than one.
  5. Restart the modem and router if the numbers look wrong, then test again.

If it is slower than your plan

Work from the inside out. A slow result on Wi-Fi and a good one on a cable means the problem is in the building: the router’s position, its age, thick walls, or too many devices on one access point. A slow result on a cable too, at a quiet time, points to the line or the provider. Run a few wired tests at different times, copy each result with the button above, and send them to your provider. Dated results from a wired computer are the evidence they ask for.

Enter your plan speed in the box above and every result shows the percentage you reached. Australian providers advertise a “typical evening speed” for each plan, measured between 7pm and 11pm, so that is the fairest figure to compare an evening test with.

Why does this give a different number from another speed test?
Every speed test measures the path between you and its own servers, and each uses a slightly different method. This one measures against the nearest Cloudflare data centre, one file at a time, and reports a speed near the top of what your connection held across those files. A test that runs many downloads at once, or tests against a server inside your provider’s own network, will often read a little higher. Differences of 5 to 10% are normal. For a trend, compare results from the same test.
How long does it take, and what does it do?
Usually 20 to 40 seconds on a fast connection, about a minute at 25 Mbps, and up to two minutes on a slow line. It checks ping first, then downloads and uploads test files that get bigger each round, and stops growing them once the files in a round each take more than a second. It keeps checking ping while the line is busy, so you can see whether calls will suffer when someone else is downloading.
What is a good internet speed?
It depends on how many people share it. As a rough guide, 25 Mbps suits one or two people, 50 Mbps suits a family that streams and makes video calls, and 100 Mbps or more suits a busy household or a small office. For working from home, look at upload as well: 5 Mbps is enough for a video call, and 20 Mbps makes large files and backups comfortable. Ping under 50 ms is good for calls and games.
Does Digital Greenhouse see or keep my results?
No. The test files travel between your browser and Cloudflare, not our server, and the results are shown on your screen only. Your recent tests and your plan speed are saved in this browser on this device, so you can compare them later, and the Clear button removes them. Nothing is sent to Cloudflare until you press Start. When a test finishes, the measuring software sends the measured speeds and ping to Cloudflare, which uses them for its statistics on internet quality. As with any site you connect to, Cloudflare sees your IP address.
Why is my upload so much lower than my download?
Most home and small-business plans are built that way, because people download far more than they upload. A 50 Mbps plan often has around 20 Mbps of upload, and older or cheaper plans much less. If you send large files, back up to the cloud or host video calls all day, choose a plan by its upload speed too.
Can I use it on my phone?
Yes. On Wi-Fi it measures your Wi-Fi and the line behind it. On mobile data it measures your mobile connection and counts towards your data allowance, so tick Use less data first.
Our office internet is slow. Can you help?
Yes. We are a Sydney IT team, and a few test results usually show whether the problem is the Wi-Fi, the router or the line. Get in touch, tell us what you are seeing, and we will give you plain-English advice.

Related tools

What’s my IP →Your public IP address and what your browser reveals. Website health check →Is it your internet or the website? Check the site itself. DNS record lookup →See where a domain’s website and email point. Talk to us →Slow office internet or patchy Wi-Fi? Plain-English help from a Sydney team.

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