Do you find yourself wondering if your website‘s DNS infrastructure and content delivery network (CDN) are optimized for fast, reliable performance? Do pages sometimes load slowly for visitors resulting in bounces and lost revenue? Well, my friend, this guide is here to help.
By the end, you‘ll have a clear overview of the 12 top tools available for benchmarking DNS provider and CDN speed. With this critical data in hand, you can confidently evaluate alternatives to maximize website performance for customers globally.
Why Page Speed Optimizations Are Critical
Let‘s first discuss why properly assessing and upgrading your DNS and CDN deserves focus.
As a 2021 Google study revealed, even minimal page load delays dramatically impact key metrics:
- 53% of mobile site visitors abandon pages taking over 3 seconds to load.
- A 5 second delay in load time can increase bounce rates by 90%.
- 20% of visitors will abandon a page taking over 1 second to load.
The costs of slow performance stack up quickly when you factor in lost ad impressions, sales, and search engine visibility. By one estimate, a 1 second page load delay costs Amazon $1.6 billion in sales annually!
The root of optimizing performance lies in effectively translating domain names to IP addresses (DNS) and delivering website resources to visitors globally (CDNs). The following sections will cover the tools available to compare providers on these fronts.
A Crash Course on DNS Performance Concepts
To contextualize the DNS tools, let‘s briefly explain some key concepts and terminology:
Resolution Time: The time it takes to translate a domain name into an IP address that allows fetching content. Fast resolution reduces wait time accessing pages.
Anycast Routing: A network strategy that uses many distributed DNS servers to return IP addresses from topologically closest locations. This lowers latency.
Unicast Routing: Single centralized servers are used for all DNS queries globally. Performance is therefore restricted by physical proximity to visitory locations.
Caching: Storing DNS query results for reuse saves repeat lookup time. Effective caching improves DNS speed.
These factors all impact DNS speed. The tools below help identify providers optimized for performance.
Tool #1: DNSPerf
DNSPerf provides free DNS performance benchmarking leveraging over 200 worldwide locations. Tests cover 35+ top providers every minute including big names like:
- Cloudflare
- AWS Route 53
- Google DNS
- OpenDNS
And many more. Reports provide resolution time data over the last 7 days, highlighting spikes and diving into granular regional differences.
For example, while Cloudflare tops the global rankings with an average worldwide resolution of 28.58 ms, niche providers beat them in certain countries.
This comprehensive testing simplifies spotting regional variance and weaknesses to guide provider selection tailored to your visitor demographics.
Unique Features:
- Comparative reporting identifying fastest providers by country
- Graphical performance trend analysis
- Filter results by continent
Tool #2: Uptrends Free CDN Performance Check
Uptrends offers an exceptional free, on-demand CDN performance checker covering all major providers. Tests measure must-know CDN effectiveness metrics like:
- Connection time
- Latency
- Download speed
- HTTP response codes
The ability to run checks using your actual site headers provides realistic results approximating real visitor performance.
You can also retrieve the responding cache server IP to map locations and confirm proper global CDN distribution alignment with your audiences.
For pinpointing CDN configuration issues, Uptrends is invaluable.
Unique Features:
- Uses actual site headers for accurate simulation
- Provides cache server IP geolocation
- Unlimited free single URL checks
Choosing DNS and CDN Providers
When assessing test results to select between the myriad of DNS and CDN providers available, a few key criteria to consider include:
DNS Performance Factors:
- Resolution time by region
- Anycast availability for localization
- Feature sets like caching, DNSSEC support
CDN Performance Factors:
- Number of regional points of presence (POPs)
- Peering partnerships
- Average latency to visitor locations
- Throughput capacity
Let‘s continue exploring tools to simplify gathering this essential performance benchmarking data.
Tool #3: DNS Speed Benchmark
For analyzing the performance of your own domain‘s DNS setup, DNS Speed Benchmark is purpose-built for the job.
Just plug in your website URL and chosen target countries. DNS Speed Benchmark will measure real-world resolution time from local resolvers in each region.
The resulting data reveals specific locations suffering from sluggish DNS. This insight guides optimizations like shifting DNS providers or enabling anycast routing to boost performance for those visitors.
Unique Features:
- Tests user-defined domains
- Compares regional performance
- Easy selection of testing locations
Tool #4: DNSBlast
DNSBlast offers a flexible, open-source tool for bombarding DNS infrastructure with high volumes of queries to uncover potential cracks.
Configurable test parameters include:
- Concurrent request levels
- Query types
- Target IP addresses
By simulating realistic peak traffic volumes, DNSBlast can catch weaknesses in reliability and redundancy planning. The CLI output provides detailed resolution statistics for quantifying performance under heavy loads.
Unique Features:
- Open-source tool with no usage costs
- Customizable query types and rates
- CLI-based advanced testing
Tool #5: DNS Benchmark
For rigorous endpoint testing from Windows or Linux PCs, DNS Benchmark is a powerhouse tool purpose-built for comprehensively analyzing DNS server performance.
Top capabilities include:
- Comparing up to 200 resolvers concurrently
- Custom host lookups
- Cache performance testing
- Detailed tabular and chart-based reporting
While requiring installation on local machines, the extensive flexibility opens up virtually limitless testing possibilities for IT pros and web developers alike.
Unique Features:
- Tests up to 200 resolvers in parallel
- Advanced cache validation
- Exportable CSV result sets
- Tabular and graphical reporting
Tool #6: CDNPerf
Quickly finding the fastest CDN providers on a country and regional basis is easy with CDNPerf. It supports side-by-side testing for uncovering location-specific strengths and weaknesses.
Covered CDN providers include:
- Cloudflare
- Akamai
- Amazon CloudFront
- Fastly
- Google Cloud CDN
With granular location filtering, dialing in optimal configs for target audiences takes minutes instead of guesswork.
Unique Features:
- Compares regional CDN latency
- Wide range of CDN provider coverage
- Country and regional reporting
Tool #7: CDN Latency Test
If analyzing the performance of your domain‘s current CDN is the goal, the CDN Latency Test by DNSPerf fits the bill.
Real-time checks from 200+ geographic vantage points measure vital loading metrics like:
- TTFB
- Latency
- Download speed
The visual report highlights global problem areas. Filtering by country or city further simplifies isolating visitor impact. Resellers often provide site owners with limited performance data – so self-service testing proves invaluable.
Unique Features:
- Analyzes site domain CDN performance
- Hundreds of regional test endpoints
- City-level results available
Tool #8: Compare CDN
In a rush but need to check how leading CDN contenders like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai compare?
Compare CDN lets you select providers to pit head-to-head in 26 regions to identify localized weak spots impacting site visitors.
The streamlined test process and instant region-by-region results require no registration, perfect for quick validations.
Unique Features:
- Quick comparison testing
- 26 regional endpoints
- No signup required
Tool #9: CloudHarmony
CloudHarmony uniquely stands out from other benchmarking tools by consolidating DNS, CDN, cloud compute, cloud storage, and PaaS performance data in one place.
The vendor-neutral perspective simplifies contrasting alternatives across essential metrics like:
- Average latency
- Packet loss
- Throughput capacity
With support for custom connection endpoints and timeouts, the detailed insights go far beyond surface-level statistics. When researching multiple web infrastructure facets, CloudHarmony can‘t be beaten.
Unique Features:
- Unified testing covering CDN, DNS, cloud, PaaS
- Custom endpoint and protocol configurability
- Loss and throughput testing
Comparing Test Results
When faced with pages of benchmarking test results, a common question arises:
How do I interpret the findings to guide optimization decisions?
While numeric metrics provide objective guidance, don‘t focus solely on #1 ranked providers. Also consider:
- Does performance satisfy goals?
- What does pricing look like?
- How many POPs align with visitor regions?
Likewise, minor latency differences of 5-10 ms matter less than large gaps. Define acceptable targets then evaluate upgrades bringing lagging metrics in line.
Now let‘s cover additional essential tools useful for verification and cloud-specific analysis.
Tool #10: DNSMap
DNSMap isn‘t purely a benchmarking tool. Rather, it facilitates validating worldwide domain resolution and DNS propagation crucial for global reliability.
After changing DNS providers, administrators must typically manually check dozens of global resolvers to confirm availability. DNSMap eliminates this tedious, manual process by automating queries from hundreds of geographic vantage points.
Any gaps or errors exposed by DNSMap tools help ensure DNS performance and reliability for websites targeting international audiences.
Unique Features:
- Automates worldwide DNS validation
- Checks propagation from global locations
- Identifies DNS gaps/misconfigurations
Tool #11: Azure Speed Test
If your web apps or services run on Microsoft Azure infrastructure, the first-party Azure Speed Test tools should play a major role in performance checks.
Top options include:
Azurespeed: Measures IaaS VM latency and throughput from global locations to all Azure regions. This helps pinpoint ideal data center deployment spots optimizing performance for your visitors.
Azure Speed Test: Tests network latency and bandwidth to every Azure regional data center from 45 endpoints. This quantifies connectivity to help maximize speed for regionally distributed Azure PaaS resources.
Both tools provide real-world metrics to guide configuring Azure for optimal response times across visitor geography.
Unique Features:
- First-party Microsoft Azure tools
- Quantifies IaaS and PaaS performance
- Identifies fastest regions by location
Tool #12: CloudPing
When hosting websites or apps on Amazon Web Services (AWS), CloudPing simplifies validating real-world infrastructure performance.
It measures actual HTTP latency from five global regions to any endpoint – whether Lambda, EC2, S3, or CloudFront.
The resulting differentials expose how connection times can vary drastically across AWS facilities to uncover actionable optimization opportunities.
With AWS offering an overwhelming menu of moving parts to tweak between instances, storage, CDNs, DNS and more – CloudPing‘s external perspective proves extremely valuable.
Unique Features:
- HTTP testing for AWS endpoints
- Multiple global vantage points
- Helps compare AWS configuration options
Time to Test!
You now have a powerful arsenal of 12 expert-recommended tools for conducting quantified, objective benchmarking of both DNS provider and CDN performance.
Remember to analyze results through the lens of your visitors‘ locations and your website‘s unique traffic patterns when deciding on optimizations. Cost, feature sets, and number of regional POPs all play a role as well.
Here‘s wishing you and your site visitors smooth sailing ahead as you sail off to new performance highs! Let the testing begin.
