DNS Speed Test (DNS Performance Test)

How to read your DNS speed test result

The resolver at the top answered your lookups fastest overall. Look at the cached column first, because most names you use every day (YouTube, WhatsApp, your bank) are already stored by every big resolver.

DNS is the internet's address book: before your phone can open a site, it asks a resolver which IP address the name belongs to. A browser keeps each answer for a while, so a gap of a few milliseconds between two resolvers changes very little. A resolver that is slow on uncached names, inconsistent or fails now and then is worth avoiding.

If two resolvers are within a few milliseconds of each other, pick either one for other reasons, such as filtering or the provider's privacy policy.

What affects DNS speed

Distance to the resolver matters most. Big providers answer from many locations, and your provider's network decides which one you reach, so the same resolver can give different times on your fibre line and on mobile data. In our own browser tests from India on 30 Sep 2026, DNS4EU, which answers from Europe, took about 340 ms per lookup, while Cloudflare and Google mostly answered in 30–60 ms.

• Cache: a popular name comes straight from the resolver's memory. A new name makes the resolver ask the root servers, then the servers for .com or .in, then the domain's own servers. You can trace that path for any domain on our DNS lookup page.
• Your own connection: weak Wi-Fi or a busy line delays every lookup as well as everything else. If the times look high for every resolver, check your ping to nearby servers first.
• Filtering: CleanBrowsing Security and Cloudflare for Families block some domains on purpose. Choose one of them for its filtering, not only for its speed.

Public DNS addresses and Private DNS hostnames

Use the IP addresses on Windows, Mac, iPhone and routers. The Private DNS setting on Android needs the hostname instead. All values are from each provider's own documentation, checked on 30 Sep 2026.

Sources: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 addresses, Google Public DNS setup guide, Control D free DNS, Quad9 service addresses and AdGuard DNS providers list.

How to switch DNS on your phone, computer or router

Before you change anything, note your current DNS settings. If a hotel or office Wi-Fi login page stops appearing after the change, switch DNS back to automatic until you are logged in. Both the Google Public DNS setup guide and the Cloudflare setup pages give this advice.

Android: Private DNS

1. Open your device's Settings app.
2. Tap Network & internet > Private DNS. If you can't find it, search Settings for "Private DNS".
3. Choose "Private DNS provider hostname".
4. Type the resolver's hostname from the table above, for example one.one.one.one (Cloudflare) or dns.google (Google). An IP address does not work here.
5. Tap Save.

The setting then applies on Wi-Fi and mobile data. Menu names differ between phone brands, and Google notes that some of these steps work only on Android 12 and up. By default Android already uses Private DNS on networks that support it, and Google recommends keeping it on. Steps from Google Android Help: advanced network settings.

Windows 11

1. Open Settings > Network & internet.
2. For Wi-Fi, select Wi-Fi > Manage known networks and pick your network. For a cable, select Ethernet and your connection.
3. Select Edit next to DNS server assignment. Some Windows 11 builds show IP assignment instead; use the button your screen shows.
4. Choose Manual and turn on IPv4.
5. Type the two addresses in Preferred DNS and Alternate DNS. You can also turn on DNS over HTTPS here.
6. Select Save.

Microsoft recommends automatic settings (DHCP) unless you have a reason to change them, and notes that the DNS over HTTPS setting is not available in Windows 10. Steps from Microsoft Support: essential network settings and Cloudflare's Windows guide.

Mac

1. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Network in the sidebar.
2. Click your network service, such as Wi-Fi, then click Details.
3. Click DNS. You may need to scroll down.
4. Click + at the bottom of the DNS servers list and enter an address. Repeat for the second address.

Steps from Apple Support: change DNS settings on Mac.

iPhone and iPad

1. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi.
2. Tap the ⓘ next to your Wi-Fi network.
3. Tap Configure DNS, then Manual.
4. Add the resolver's addresses.

This changes DNS for that one Wi-Fi network only, not for other networks or mobile data. Apple's iPhone User Guide shows where the setting is; the Manual steps come from Google Public DNS and Cloudflare's iOS guide, which both cover iPhone and iPad.

Router (every device at home)

1. Type the router's address into a browser. Google notes most routers use a default such as 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1, 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.1.100.
2. Find the DNS fields. Cloudflare says they are often under WAN, Internet or IPv6, depending on the brand.
3. Write down the values that are already there.
4. Enter the new primary and secondary addresses and save.

Changing DNS on the router changes it for every device at home. Some provider-supplied routers do not let you change DNS. If yours does not, change DNS on each phone or computer instead, or use Private DNS on Android phones. More detail in Cloudflare's router guide.

How this DNS test works

Your browser sends every lookup itself, as DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH): an ordinary DNS question wrapped in an encrypted HTTPS request to the resolver. Each resolver gets the same binary DNS message, except AliDNS, which only lets web pages use its JSON form. Resolvers are tested one after another, never at the same time, so they do not slow each other down.

Each resolver first gets one warm-up lookup, which is thrown away because it includes setting up the secure connection. Then every round asks one popular name (google.com, youtube.com, instagram.com, flipkart.com and wikipedia.org in turn) and one random name under mpatel.org that no resolver can have stored. A lookup with no answer within 3 seconds counts as a failure.

The table shows medians and the middle half of the times. The ranking uses a score that is ours: 60% of the cached median plus 40% of the uncached median, plus 150 ms times the share of failed lookups. Times are measured by the browser's clock, because no resolver lets web pages see a finer timing breakdown.

What this cannot tell you: the fastest resolver in this test is fastest from your browser, over DNS-over-HTTPS, right now. Your phone or router normally uses plain DNS on port 53, which a web page cannot measure, so treat the ranking as a strong hint, not a guarantee. Each resolver you test sees your IP address and the names above, as with any DNS lookup.

The benchmark is light on data: in our own run on 30 Sep 2026, 49 lookups downloaded about 12 KB of DNS answers, so even the 5-round test uses far less than 1 MB of mobile data.

The optional resolver check sends one request to ip-api.com's EDNS service, which reports the address of the resolver that looked up a random name. It runs only when you press its button. Read the full method on our About page and what each service sees in our privacy policy.