What Is Latency?
Last reviewed 2026-11-01
Latency is delay, not speed. See how HTTP round-trip time differs from ICMP ping and from in-game numbers.
Delay versus throughput
Throughput is how much data arrives per second. Latency is how long one round trip takes. A connection can move a lot of data and still feel late.
Jitter is the change from one round trip to the next. A stable 40 ms is easier to play on than a median of 30 ms that keeps jumping.
What a browser can measure
This site measures HTTP request time to its measurement endpoint. That includes more than an ICMP echo. It is the delay an application on this path actually waits.
It is not the number inside a game. Game clients use their own servers and often UDP. Use both numbers for different questions.