Free Website Speed Test
Test your website speed for free in a real Chrome browser from locations around the world. See exactly how long your page takes to load, which requests slow it down, and how it scores in Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals.
At a glance
- Real browser: every test loads your page once, cold, in headless Chrome driven by Google Lighthouse.
- Global: test from up to 3 locations at once without an account, up to 5 with a free account, or every location on a paid plan.
- Metrics: load time, time to first byte (TTFB), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), Total Blocking Time (TBT), First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Speed Index.
- Waterfall: DNS, connect, TLS, wait and download timing for every request, plus failed requests and JavaScript console errors.
- Visuals: filmstrip, page-load video and a full-page screenshot from each location.
- Options: desktop or mobile device, Broadband, 4G or 3G throttling, custom headers, cookies, user agent and Basic Auth.
- Exports: PDF report, CSV, JSON and HAR file.
How to test your website speed
- Enter the URL of the page you want to test.
- Choose Desktop or Mobile and a network speed (no throttling, Broadband, 4G or 3G).
- Pick up to three test locations, for example one near your server and two near your visitors.
- Click Run Test. Results appear live as each location finishes, usually within one to two minutes.
To test a mobile page with mobile defaults already set, use the Mobile Website Speed Test.
What the website speed test measures
| Metric | What it tells you | Good target |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first byte (TTFB) | How long the server takes to start answering | Under 0.8 s |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | When the first text or image appears | Under 1.8 s |
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | When the main content is visible (Core Web Vital) | Under 2.5 s |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | How much the layout jumps while loading (Core Web Vital) | Under 0.1 |
| Total Blocking Time (TBT) | How long JavaScript blocks the page; the lab stand-in for Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | Under 200 ms |
| Load time | When the browser's load event fires | As low as possible |
The targets for LCP, CLS, FCP and TTFB are Google's published "good" thresholds. Lighthouse also scores the page for performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO, and lists specific fixes.
Why test website speed from multiple locations?
A page that loads in one second next to your server can take three or four seconds on another continent. Distance adds latency to every DNS lookup, connection and request, and CDNs, third-party scripts and regional routing behave differently in each region. Running the same test from several locations at once shows whether a slow result is caused by your page itself (slow everywhere) or by the network path to one region (slow in one place). The results table compares TTFB, load time, LCP, CLS, TBT, page size and request count side by side, and the map shows where each test ran.
How to read the waterfall chart
Each row in the waterfall is one request. The colored segments show where the time went:
- DNS: looking up the host name. Long DNS times point to a slow DNS provider; check it with the DNS Trace Test.
- Connect and TLS: opening the connection and negotiating HTTPS. High values usually mean distance or an overloaded server.
- Waiting (TTFB): the server's think time. A slow first request usually means slow back-end code, a database or missing caching.
- Download: transferring the response. Large images, fonts and scripts show up here.
Filter by type, show failed requests only, or group requests by host to see how much time third parties such as analytics, ads and chat widgets add.
How to make your website faster
- Reduce server response time with caching and a CDN close to your visitors.
- Compress and resize images, and serve modern formats such as WebP or AVIF.
- Defer or remove JavaScript that is not needed for the first view.
- Preload the LCP image and critical fonts, and reserve space for images and ads to avoid layout shift.
- Limit third-party scripts, and load the ones you keep asynchronously.
Re-run the test after each change and compare the results. With a free account you can keep your test history and compare up to five tests side by side.
Related free tools
- Web Server Test: check server response time and HTTP status without loading the whole page.
- Ping Test and Traceroute Test: check network reachability and latency to your server.
- China Firewall Test: run the same speed test from inside mainland China.
For 24/7 page speed monitoring with alerts, see Dotcom-Monitor. For load testing with thousands of real browsers, see LoadView.
Frequently asked questions
Is this website speed test free?
Yes. You can test any public URL from up to three locations without signing up. A free account adds up to five locations per test, a larger daily test allowance, test history, sharing and test comparison.
How is this different from Google PageSpeed Insights?
PageSpeed Insights runs one Lighthouse test from a Google data center and shows field data from Chrome users. Dotcom-Tools loads your page in a real Chrome browser from the locations you choose, side by side, and adds a full request waterfall, a filmstrip and video, failed requests, console errors and TLS details.
What is a good page load time?
Aim for a Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds and a time to first byte under 0.8 seconds; these are Google's "good" thresholds. Most fast pages finish loading in under 3 seconds on a desktop connection.
Why is my website slow in some locations but fast in others?
Usually because of distance and routing. Every request has to cross the network, so pages hosted far from visitors are slower unless a CDN serves them nearby. Compare TTFB and the connect times in the waterfall between locations to confirm it.
Does the test measure Core Web Vitals?
It measures Largest Contentful Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift in the lab. Interaction to Next Paint needs a real user interacting with the page, so the test reports Total Blocking Time, its lab substitute, instead.
Does the website speed test use a real browser?
Yes. Each test loads the page in Chrome with an empty cache, the way a first-time visitor sees it, and records every request the browser makes.
Can I test a page behind a login or on a staging server?
You can add Basic Auth credentials, cookies and request headers, and point the host name to a different IPv4 address to test a staging server. Credentials are encrypted and masked in shared results. Internal and private network addresses cannot be tested.
Last updated: