Speedtest your DNS resolver | Benchmarking with DNSGauge

February 2nd, 2026
project

DNS is a hoot. After a deep dive into DNS-based adblocking tech last year, I wanted to get a better sense of the performance landscape for DNS resolvers. DNS is often the first step in loading a website or app, so it can have a big impact on overall speed.

DNSgauge is a quick and easy command-line tool to benchmark your DNS resolver. I ran a comprehensive test of 8 popular DNS providers over both DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) and traditional UDP to see which is fastest in real-world conditions.

What really matters when choosing a DNS resolver is the average latency (p50) and the tail latency (p95) for your location. I also looked at success rates and jitter to get a full picture of performance. The TLDR is that for secure DoH requests, the popular resolvers Cloudflare and Quad9 are neck-and-neck with the lowest latency. For traditional UDP, NextDNS and Quad9 lead the pack.

This tool tests the following DNS resolvers:

Provider	Protocol	Target
Cloudflare	UDP	`1.1.1.1`
Cloudflare	DoH	`https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query`
Google	UDP	`8.8.8.8`
Google	DoH	`https://dns.google/dns-query`
NextDNS	UDP	`45.90.28.0`
NextDNS	UDP	`45.90.30.0`
NextDNS	DoH	`https://dns.nextdns.io`
Quad9	UDP	`9.9.9.9`
Quad9	DoH	`https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query`
Quad9-ECS	DoH	`https://dns11.quad9.net/dns-query`
Mullvad	UDP	`194.242.2.2`
Mullvad	DoH	`https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query`
AdGuard	UDP	`94.140.14.14`
AdGuard	DoH	`https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query`
LibreDNS	DoH	`https://doh.libredns.gr/dns-query`
OpenDNS	UDP	`208.67.222.222`

Note: NextDNS DoH often requires a config-specific path, so https://dns.nextdns.io may need customization with --doh.

Quick Start: Try It Yourself

# Install dnsgauge via Homebrew
brew tap themorgantown/dnsgauge
brew install dnsgauge

# Run a quick comparison (takes ~30 seconds)
dnsgauge --doh-only --domains 10

# Run the full benchmark I used for this post
dnsgauge --doh-only --comprehensive --mode warm --passes 4 --domains 21 --qtypes A,AAAA,HTTPS --timeout 2.5

Test Environment

Setting	Value
Location	Catskill Mountains, USA
Connection	Home Wifi
Date	February 2, 2026
Tool	dnsgauge 1.1.0
Domains tested	21 popular sites (google.com, amazon.com, etc.)
Record types	A, AAAA, HTTPS
Mode	Warm (connection reuse enabled, simulates real browsing)

Results: DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH)

DoH encrypts your DNS queries over HTTPS—this is what modern browsers use by default. I ran 4 passes with warm mode to simulate real browsing with HTTP/2 connection reuse.

DoH Latency Comparison

Rank	Provider	p50 (ms)	p95 (ms)	Success	Jitter
1	Quad9	27	41	99%	10ms
2	Cloudflare	27	41	100%	10ms
3	Quad9-ECS	26	52	99%	17ms
4	NextDNS	28	54	100%	21ms
5	Google	37	80	100%	18ms
6	LibreDNS	121	153	100%	40ms
7	AdGuard	105	196	100%	38ms
8	Mullvad	262	353	100%	71ms

DoH Latency Chart

p50 Latency (ms) - Lower is better
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Quad9       ████████████████████████████ 27ms
Cloudflare  ████████████████████████████ 27ms
Quad9-ECS   ███████████████████████████  26ms
NextDNS     █████████████████████████████ 28ms
Google      ██████████████████████████████████████ 37ms
AdGuard     █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 105ms
LibreDNS    █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 121ms
Mullvad     ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 262ms

Winner (best overall): Cloudflare (tied fastest p50/p95 with Quad9, and 100% success in this run).

Note: Quad9-ECS had the lowest p50 (26ms) but a worse p95 (52ms) and 99% success.

Results: Plain UDP DNS

For comparison, here’s how the resolvers perform over traditional UDP port 53. This is faster but unencrypted.

UDP Latency Comparison

Rank	Provider	Endpoint	p50 (ms)	p95 (ms)	Success	Jitter
1	NextDNS	45.90.28.0	9	11	100%	2ms
2	Quad9	9.9.9.9	9	12	100%	2ms
3	OpenDNS	208.67.222.222	9	13	100%	2ms
4	AdGuard	94.140.14.14	9	14	100%	2ms
5	Mullvad	194.242.2.2	10	17	100%	3ms
6	Google	8.8.8.8	10	16	100%	3ms
7	NextDNS	45.90.30.0	9	13	100%	11ms
8	Cloudflare	1.1.1.1	12	47	100%	93ms

UDP Latency Chart

p50 Latency (ms) - Lower is better
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
NextDNS (28.0)   █████████ 9ms
Quad9            █████████ 9ms
OpenDNS          █████████ 9ms
AdGuard          █████████ 9ms
Google           ██████████ 10ms
Mullvad          ██████████ 10ms
Cloudflare       ████████████ 12ms

Winner: NextDNS (9ms p50 with rock-solid 2ms jitter)

Surprise: Cloudflare’s UDP had high jitter (93ms) and a much higher p95 (47ms). This can happen due to local network variability and routing changes; rerun a few times to see if it persists.

What Does This Mean for 1,000 Domains/Day?

A typical power user might resolve ~1,000 unique domains daily (browsing, apps, background services). Let’s calculate the cumulative “waiting on DNS” time.

Important: a “domain” is not the same as a “DNS query.” Depending on the app and network, each domain might trigger:

1 lookup (lower bound, e.g., one A or AAAA lookup)
2 lookups (common: A + AAAA)
3 lookups (common in modern stacks: A + AAAA + HTTPS)

So below I show a range for 1,000 unique domains/day.

DoH: Cloudflare vs NextDNS

Metric	Cloudflare	NextDNS	Δ (difference)
p50	27ms	28ms	+1ms
p95	41ms	54ms	+13ms

Daily impact at 1,000 domains (range depends on lookups/domain):

Scenario	Extra wait with NextDNS vs Cloudflare
Median-ish (p50)	~1–3 seconds/day (1ms × 1,000 × 1–3 lookups)
Tail-heavy (p95)	~13–39 seconds/day (13ms × 1,000 × 1–3 lookups)

UDP: NextDNS vs Cloudflare

Metric	NextDNS	Cloudflare	Δ (difference)
p50	9ms	12ms	+3ms
p95	11ms	47ms	+36ms

Daily impact at 1,000 domains (UDP run used A+AAAA; range depends on lookups/domain):

Scenario	Extra wait with Cloudflare vs NextDNS
Median-ish (p50)	~3–6 seconds/day (3ms × 1,000 × 1–2 lookups)
Tail-heavy (p95)	~36–72 seconds/day (36ms × 1,000 × 1–2 lookups)

Recommendations

For Speed Alone

DoH: Use Cloudflare or Quad9 (27ms p50)
UDP: Use NextDNS or Quad9 (9ms p50)

For Privacy + Speed

NextDNS offers ad/tracker blocking with competitive latency (28ms DoH, 9ms UDP)
Quad9 blocks malware domains with top-tier speed

For Maximum Privacy

Mullvad is slowest (262ms DoH) but pairs with their VPN for no-logging guarantees

Try It Yourself

I built dnsgauge so anyone can test their DNS resolver. It’s a simple command-line tool that runs on macOS and Linux.

# Install via Homebrew
brew tap themorgantown/dnsgauge
brew install dnsgauge

# Run a quick 30-second test
dnsgauge --domains 10

# Or Linux
git clone https://github.com/themorgantown/homebrew-dnsgauge.git
cd homebrew-dnsgauge
pipx install .

Technical Details

Test Environment & Methodology

Test Setup:

Location: Catskill Mountains, USA
Connection: Home Wifi
Date: February 2, 2026
Tool: dnsgauge 1.1.0
Domains tested: 21 popular sites (google.com, amazon.com, etc.)

DoH Test:

Record types: A, AAAA, HTTPS
Mode: Warm (connection reuse enabled via HTTP/2)
Passes: 4 (first pass for warmup, last 3 measured)
Command: dnsgauge --doh-only --comprehensive --mode warm --passes 4 --domains 21 --qtypes A,AAAA,HTTPS --timeout 2.5

UDP Test:

Record types: A, AAAA
Mode: Mixed
Passes: 2
EDNS0 payload: 1232 bytes (modern standard to avoid fragmentation)

Scoring:

Success rate (most important)
p95 tail latency (consistency matters)
p50 median latency (typical performance)
Jitter (variance in response time)

Limitations:

Results vary by location and ISP routing
Fixed domain list (21 popular sites)
Single test run per configuration

Full DoH Results (All 8 Providers)

Rank	Provider	p50 (ms)	p95 (ms)	Success	Jitter
1	Cloudflare	27	41	100%	10ms
2	Quad9	27	41	99%	10ms
3	Quad9-ECS	26	52	99%	17ms
4	NextDNS	28	54	100%	21ms
5	Google	37	80	100%	18ms
6	LibreDNS	121	153	100%	40ms
7	AdGuard	105	196	100%	38ms
8	Mullvad	262	353	100%	71ms

Full UDP Results (Top 8 Providers)

Rank	Provider	Endpoint	p50 (ms)	p95 (ms)	Success	Jitter
1	NextDNS	45.90.28.0	9	11	100%	2ms
2	Quad9	9.9.9.9	9	12	100%	2ms
3	OpenDNS	208.67.222.222	9	13	100%	2ms
4	AdGuard	94.140.14.14	9	14	100%	2ms
5	Mullvad	194.242.2.2	10	17	100%	3ms
6	Google	8.8.8.8	10	16	100%	3ms
7	NextDNS	45.90.30.0	9	13	100%	11ms
8	Cloudflare	1.1.1.1	12	47	100%	93ms

Note: Cloudflare’s UDP had unusually high jitter (93ms) in this test run. Network variability happens—retest to confirm.

Raw Output Tables

DoH Warm Mode:

Run: mode=warm, passes=4, qtypes=A/AAAA/HTTPS, domains=21, servers=8, timeout=2.5s, edns_payload=1232, DoH_keepalive=on

Rank  Score  Provider    Proto  Endpoint                              Mode  QTypes        N    Success  p50  p95  Avg  Jitter  Timeout  NX  SF  HTTPerr  ParseErr  OtherErr  Trunc  TCPfb  RespKB_p95  HTTPver  Reuse~
----  -----  ----------  -----  ------------------------------------  ----  ------------  ---  -------  ---  ---  ---  ------  -------  --  --  -------  --------  --------  -----  -----  ----------  -------  ------
1     141.7  Quad9       DoH    https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query       warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  99%      27   41   29   10      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        1%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
2     141.4  Cloudflare  DoH    https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query  warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     27   41   29   10      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
3     129.8  Quad9-ECS   DoH    https://dns11.quad9.net/dns-query     warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  99%      26   52   31   17      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        1%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
4     127.0  NextDNS     DoH    https://dns.nextdns.io                warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     28   54   33   21      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
5     118.1  Google      DoH    https://dns.google/dns-query          warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     37   80   42   18      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
6     090.8  LibreDNS    DoH    https://doh.libredns.gr/dns-query     warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     121  153  130  40      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
7     089.4  AdGuard     DoH    https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query     warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     105  196  116  38      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%   
8     076.2  Mullvad     DoH    https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query     warm  A/AAAA/HTTPS  189  100%     262  353  283  71      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   96%

UDP Mixed Mode:

Run: mode=mixed, passes=2, qtypes=A/AAAA, domains=21, servers=16, timeout=2.5s, edns_payload=1232, DoH_keepalive=on

Rank  Score  Provider              Proto  Endpoint                              Mode   QTypes  N   Success  p50  p95  Avg  Jitter  Timeout  NX  SF  HTTPerr  ParseErr  OtherErr  Trunc  TCPfb  RespKB_p95  HTTPver  Reuse~
----  -----  --------------------  -----  ------------------------------------  -----  ------  --  -------  ---  ---  ---  ------  -------  --  --  -------  --------  --------  -----  -----  ----------  -------  ------
1     200.7  NextDNS               UDP    45.90.28.0                            mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     9    11   9    2       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
2     199.9  Quad9                 UDP    9.9.9.9                               mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     9    12   9    2       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
3     195.9  OpenDNS               UDP    208.67.222.222                        mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     9    13   10   2       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
4     193.5  AdGuard               UDP    94.140.14.14                          mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     9    14   9    2       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
5     188.5  Mullvad               UDP    194.242.2.2                           mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     10   17   10   3       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
6     188.4  Google                UDP    8.8.8.8                               mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     10   16   10   3       0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
7     179.6  NextDNS               UDP    45.90.30.0                            mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     9    13   10   11      0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
8     139.3  Cloudflare            DoH    https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query  mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     27   46   29   10      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
9     138.4  Quad9                 DoH    https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query       mixed  A/AAAA  84  99%      26   43   29   12      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        1%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
10    126.7  Cloudflare (current)  UDP    1.1.1.1                               mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     12   47   33   93      0%       0%  0%  —        —         0%        0%     0%     0.1         —        —     
11    124.5  NextDNS               DoH    https://dns.nextdns.io                mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     31   51   37   27      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
12    116.9  Quad9-ECS             DoH    https://dns11.quad9.net/dns-query     mixed  A/AAAA  84  99%      31   79   36   22      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        1%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
13    103.8  Google                DoH    https://dns.google/dns-query          mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     41   115  52   36      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
14    088.4  AdGuard               DoH    https://dns.adguard.com/dns-query     mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     103  205  116  41      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
15    085.3  LibreDNS              DoH    https://doh.libredns.gr/dns-query     mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     126  222  140  49      0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%   
16    076.1  Mullvad               DoH    https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query     mixed  A/AAAA  84  100%     163  308  157  140     0%       0%  0%  0%       0%        0%        —      —      0.1         HTTP/2   90%

Benchmarked with dnsgauge — install via brew tap themorgantown/dnsgauge && brew install dnsgauge

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