DNS speed test

Every page load starts with a DNS lookup. A slow resolver delays everything that follows.

Press GO — about 6 seconds, no signup.

Ready.

Before your browser can request a page, it has to turn the domain name into an IP address. That lookup happens before anything else — before the connection, before the first byte, before any of the speed you pay for is involved at all. When it is slow, every site feels sluggish in a way no speed test explains.

This test measures an uncached lookup deliberately. It requests a randomly generated hostname so the answer cannot already be sitting in a cache, which means what you see is the true cost of a real recursive resolution rather than the near-zero time of a repeat lookup.

Which resolver this actually times

This test times a DNS-over-HTTPS lookup against Cloudflare's resolver at 1.1.1.1. It is not querying whichever resolver your operating system is configured to use, because a web page has no way to reach that: the browser gives JavaScript no access to the system resolver. So treat this as a reading of what a fast public resolver costs you from where you are sitting — a good benchmark for the network path and a fair comparison point, but not a verdict on your ISP's own DNS. If this number is good and browsing still feels slow to start, your configured resolver is worth testing separately from the command line with dig or nslookup.

Why uncached is the honest measurement

Measuring a domain you just visited tells you how fast your cache is, which is not useful — it will always be fast. The first visit to any new domain pays the full resolution cost, and a page pulling assets from several different hosts pays it several times over. That is the number that shapes how the web actually feels, so that is the one measured here.

Reading the result

Under 20 ms indicates a well-placed resolver and is what a good public DNS service delivers. 20-60 ms is normal. Above 100 ms is slow enough to be perceptible on every first visit to a site. Consistently high figures usually point at an ISP resolver that is overloaded or geographically distant.

Changing your DNS resolver

You are not required to use your provider's resolver. Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1, Google's 8.8.8.8 and Quad9's 9.9.9.9 are all free, and are frequently faster than an ISP's default. Change it once in your router and every device on the network benefits. Worth knowing before you switch: your resolver sees every domain you look up, so the choice is about privacy as much as speed — all three publish policies on what they log, and they differ.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good DNS response time?

Under 20 ms is excellent, under 60 ms is normal, and above 100 ms is slow enough to notice on the first visit to any new site.

Will changing DNS make my internet faster?

It will not raise your bandwidth. It reduces the delay before each new domain starts loading, which makes browsing feel faster even though the measured speed is unchanged.

Why does this test use a random hostname?

To defeat caching. A domain you have visited before answers from cache almost instantly and tells you nothing about your resolver's real speed.