Frequently asked questions

Network jitter is the variation in latency (ping) over time. While ping tells you the average round-trip time for a packet, jitter tells you how consistent — or inconsistent — that timing is. A connection with low jitter delivers packets at a steady, predictable rhythm. High jitter means packets arrive erratically, which causes lag spikes, choppy audio, and video freezes in real-time applications. Jitter is measured in milliseconds (ms).

Less than 5ms — Excellent. Suitable for competitive gaming, 4K video calls, and professional VoIP.

5–15ms — Good. Most users will not notice any issues for casual gaming or HD video calls.

15–30ms — Fair. Standard browsing is fine, but gamers may notice occasional micro-stutters.

Above 30ms — Poor. Noticeable lag spikes, VoIP call quality issues, and video freezes.

No — they measure different things. Ping (latency) is the average time for a packet to make a round trip. Jitter is how much that time varies between consecutive measurements. You can have low ping but high jitter (fast but unpredictable), which is actually worse for real-time apps like gaming than having moderate but stable latency. For gaming and VoIP, low jitter is more important than low ping.

jitter.is uses the RFC 3550 method (the same standard used by VoIP and RTP protocols): it computes the mean absolute deviation of consecutive latency samples. In plain language: it takes each pair of consecutive pings, calculates the absolute difference between them, then averages all those differences. This gives a stable, representative measure of how much your latency is fluctuating.

The first request to any server requires establishing a TCP connection and completing a TLS handshake. These steps add 50–200ms of one-time overhead that does not reflect your ongoing jitter. By discarding the first 3 pings as a warm-up, jitter.is ensures your results reflect your true steady-state performance — not an inflated first-measurement artifact.

Speedtest.net uses a dedicated test server geographically close to you, and establishes a persistent WebSocket connection. This eliminates DNS, TCP, and TLS overhead and minimizes the number of network hops. jitter.is uses standard browser HTTP fetch requests to public internet servers, which have more hops and slightly more overhead. For the most accurate measurement, deploy a /ping endpoint via Cloudflare Worker on your own domain — it will route to the nearest edge node and give results comparable to Speedtest.

Cloudflare Global is the best default — it routes to the nearest Cloudflare edge node worldwide, giving you a reliable baseline. For gaming, choose the server region closest to your game servers. For business apps hosted in a specific region (e.g., AWS EU-West), choose Google DE as a proxy for European latency. If you have your own server with a /ping endpoint, use Custom URL for the most accurate results.

No. All measurements run entirely in your browser. No data is sent to jitter.is servers. Your IP address, test results, location, and device information are never logged or stored. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Packet loss occurs when data packets fail to reach the destination. 0% is perfect. Even 1–2% packet loss causes noticeable stuttering in games and audio glitches in VoIP. Above 5% is severe — you'll have frequent call drops and the connection will feel broken. Packet loss is usually caused by Wi-Fi interference, faulty cables, or problems in your ISP's network.

1. Switch to Ethernet — Moving from Wi-Fi to a wired connection is the single most effective step and typically reduces jitter by 70–90%.

2. Restart your router and modem — Clears memory, resets routing tables, and often resolves temporary congestion.

3. Enable QoS (Quality of Service) — Most modern routers support QoS settings that prioritize gaming and VoIP traffic over downloads.

4. Test at different times of day — If jitter is only high in the evenings, it's likely ISP network congestion during peak hours.

5. Contact your ISP — If the problem persists and none of the above helps, it may be a fault in your ISP's network requiring their intervention.

Wi-Fi is a shared, half-duplex radio medium. Every nearby device, microwave, cordless phone, and neighboring Wi-Fi network competes for the same radio spectrum. This causes frequent collisions and retransmissions, which create highly variable delivery times. Ethernet is a dedicated, full-duplex connection with no contention — packets always travel at the same speed, resulting in very low jitter.

This is actually a common pattern with Wi-Fi. Your average latency to the router might be low (3–5ms) because you're physically close, but the variation (jitter) is high because of wireless interference. For real-time apps, high jitter is worse than high ping. A 50ms stable connection will feel smoother for gaming and VoIP than a 10ms connection that spikes to 80ms irregularly.