VPN Speed Test: How to Check Your Internet Before Choosing
Learn how to test speed, ping, jitter and packet loss with and without a VPN, so you can tell whether the service or your ISP is slowing you down.
To judge a VPN or any privacy service fairly, first measure your internet without it: speed, ping, jitter and packet loss, once during the day and once in the evening. Without that baseline, any numbers you get "with the service on" mean nothing, because you can't tell whether the service or your ISP is to blame.
Why isn't one speed test enough?
A typical internet speed test shows megabits. But a video call doesn't break up because of megabits. You can have 500 Mbps and still a half-second ping: downloads fly, yet pages open with a hiccup. So we measure four things.
- Speed (download and upload, Mbps): how fast videos and files load.
- Ping: response time in milliseconds. To an external server from a home network it's usually 5–30 ms.
- Jitter: how much the ping varies. When it swings between 20 ms and 150 ms, audio in calls starts to stutter.
- Packet loss: the share of data that never arrives. Even 1–2% causes choppy calls, and anything above 5% is a reason to dig into your network.
Jitter and packet loss are what people mean by VPN stability, or the stability of any connection. They barely change your speed, but they create that "it's laggy" feeling.
Step 1. How do I prepare for a fair test?
Results depend on what's going on around you, so remove the noise:
- Close torrents, cloud sync and updates. They eat bandwidth and skew the numbers.
- If you can, connect your computer with a cable. Wi-Fi adds its own noise, and that's not what you're testing.
- Stand near the router. If everything is fine in only one room, the problem is coverage, not your ISP.
- Note which device you're testing on. A phone and a laptop can differ several times over.
If the numbers are weak even in ideal conditions, start with the router. Our article on an old router and the settings that actually speed up your internet covers what to check before experimenting with any service.
Step 2. How do I measure my baseline speed?
Open any online speed test and run it three times in a row, with a minute between runs. Write down all three results, not just the best one. If the speed jumps wildly (180, then 40, then 160), that points to interference or congestion, and the average will mislead you.
Also look at the connection speed in your computer's network settings. It shows the link speed to your router, not to the internet, so comparing it with a speed test result makes no sense.
Step 3. How do I check ping and packet loss?
Browser tests are poor at showing packet loss: the protocol resends lost data on its own, so losses just look like latency spikes. The command line is more reliable.
- Windows:
ping -n 100 1.1.1.1 - macOS and Linux:
ping -c 100 1.1.1.1
At the end, the command prints the average response time and the loss percentage. A hundred packets take about a minute. Write down the average and the loss: those two numbers are enough.
Step 4. Why test again in the evening?
During the day the network is quiet, but between 8 and 11 p.m. the whole neighborhood is streaming video. If the evening numbers are clearly worse, part of the problem sits on your ISP's side and has nothing to do with which service you pick. We cover the causes in detail in why video lags only in the evening.
Step 5. How do I run the same tests with the VPN on?
Now turn the service on and repeat steps 2–4 under the same conditions, day and evening. Change only one thing: service on or off. Fill in a table.
How to read the results:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Speed slightly lower with the service, ping slightly higher | Normal. Traffic takes a longer route, a small price for encryption and the extra hop |
| Speed dropped several times over, jitter went up | An overloaded server or a weak protocol. Test again at a different time |
| Packet loss rose from zero to 2–5% | An unstable connection; not suitable for calls or gaming |
| Everything is bad in the evening both with and without the service | The cause is your ISP or Wi-Fi, not the service |
The main takeaway: a service can't give you more speed than your line has. It can keep it or lose some of it. A good result looks like "almost the same numbers as without it," not "faster."
What else affects the results?
DNS. Slow DNS adds a pause before every new site opens, even when your download speed is fine. We explained how it works in DNS explained in plain English.
Your device. A weak phone with a busy processor encrypts traffic more slowly. Test on the device you'll actually use.
Time of day. One measurement at 3 p.m. isn't representative. You need at least one evening run.
Number of devices. If five gadgets on your home network are gaming, streaming and updating at once, the numbers will be worse than in a quiet network. For a fair test, leave only one device connected.
Quick checklist
- Background downloads closed, one device, near the router.
- Three speed runs without the service, during the day.
- A hundred pings: average and loss recorded.
- The same in the evening, 8–11 p.m.
- The same steps with the service on.
- Compared all four metrics, not just megabits.
For a basic VPN speed test, that's enough. You only need extra tools if packet loss shows up at some stage along the route.
Can I compare services without paying?
The best way is to test on your own connection, for free. Larofly has a free 7-day trial with no card required and the full device limit of the plan. That's enough time to complete the whole set of measurements, evening runs included. If you decide to stay, Standard costs 349 ₽ per month for 5 devices.
Choosing between several services? Run each one through the same table, then check it against our article on seven signs of a privacy service you can trust with your traffic: speed is only one item on the list. To set up the connection on all your devices, see the separate setup guide.