What is a good ping?
A good ping is under 50 ms. Below 20 ms is excellent, 20–50 ms is very good, 50–100 ms is fine for browsing and video calls, 100–150 ms is noticeable in anything real-time, and above 150 ms feels laggy. What counts as "good" depends on the task: competitive gaming needs under 50 ms, while streaming video is barely affected by ping at all.
Ping ranges, and what they feel like
Ping is measured in milliseconds (ms) — the round trip for a small packet to reach a server and come back. Lower is always better, but the threshold that matters depends on what you're doing.
| Ping | How it feels | Good enough for |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 ms | Instant. No perceptible delay. | Competitive gaming, music collaboration, remote desktop |
| 20–50 ms | Very responsive. Normal for a good wired connection. | All gaming, video calls, everything below |
| 50–100 ms | Fine. A slight delay you'd only notice side by side. | Video calls, casual gaming, browsing, streaming |
| 100–150 ms | Noticeable. Calls start to feel like talking over each other. | Browsing, streaming, email |
| 150–300 ms | Laggy. Real-time apps feel sluggish and out of sync. | Streaming, downloads, anything not interactive |
| Over 300 ms | Poor. Often satellite, a congested line, or a very distant server. | Downloads and background transfers only |
Distance sets a floor you can't beat: light through fibre takes roughly 1 ms per 100 km each way, so a server 3,000 km away can't return better than about 60 ms no matter how good your connection is.
Step by step
- 1Measure your ping. Run the test below. It sends repeated requests and reports the round-trip time in milliseconds — take the average, not a single reading.
- 2Compare against the table above. Match your average to the range that fits. Judge it against what you actually do online, not against the lowest number you've seen someone else post.
- 3Check the spread, not just the average. Look at the gap between your best and worst readings. A steady 60 ms is better than a number bouncing between 20 ms and 120 ms.
- 4Retest on a wired connection. Plug into the router with a cable and run it again. The difference is what your Wi-Fi is costing you.
- 5Retest at a busy time. Run it again during peak evening hours. A ping that only degrades at 9pm points to congestion on your line or in your neighbourhood.
Test your ping now
Round-trip latency to our server
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Averages 5 requests. Browser security prevents true ICMP ping, so this measures HTTP round-trip time — a close, practical equivalent.
What the result means
Ping measures responsiveness, not capacity. A 1 Gbps connection with 200 ms latency will still feel slow in a video call, and a modest 50 Mbps line with 15 ms ping will feel instant. They are separate numbers with separate causes, which is why a speed test alone can look great while everything feels sluggish.
Some of your ping is physics and cannot be fixed. The rest — Wi-Fi interference, an overloaded router, a congested ISP link, background downloads — usually can. If your wired ping is good and your Wi-Fi ping is not, the problem is inside your home, and that's the part worth attacking.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good ping for gaming?
Under 50 ms is good for gaming and under 20 ms is excellent. Competitive shooters and fighting games are the most sensitive; strategy and turn-based games are comfortable well above 100 ms.
Is 100 ms ping bad?
Not for most things. At 100 ms browsing, streaming, and video calls all work normally — you'd notice it in fast-paced gaming, but it isn't a broken connection.
What is an average ping?
Typical home broadband lands between 20 ms and 60 ms to a nearby server. Mobile networks usually run 30–90 ms, and satellite connections are often 500 ms or more.
Does lower ping mean faster internet?
No. Ping is response time and speed is capacity. You can have very fast download speeds with high ping, or a slower connection that feels snappy because its latency is low.
Why is my ping different on every website?
Ping is measured to a specific server, so the distance to that server changes the result. A test to a nearby server will always read lower than one to a server on another continent.