Update Sept 22, 2019: I added some more VPS’es and re-ran the tests over the past week, you can see the results here.
I learnt about using speed test-cli through discussions on LowEndTalk. It was a relaxed Saturday afternoon, and it seemed like a god opportunity to try out something new. I took screenshots or copied out results with different VPS machines that I have recently started using…
How to use speedtest-cli for testing speed of bandwidth for VPS or Internet Provider (ISP)
I had to run apt-get update on every VPS, and install this utility using simple commands. For sake of brevity, I will only post sample output from one of the installs.
As you may notice- I prefer to use Debian. On the servers below, flavours of LInux are either Debian 9, or Ubuntu 18.04. On the VPS by IntoVPS which I had to unfortunately cancel, I had used Debian 10.
[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install speedtest-cli
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
libpython-stdlib libpython2.7-minimal libpython2.7-stdlib python
python-minimal python-pkg-resources python2.7 python2.7-minimal
Suggested packages:
python-doc python-tk python-setuptools python2.7-doc binfmt-support
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libpython-stdlib libpython2.7-minimal libpython2.7-stdlib python
python-minimal python-pkg-resources python2.7 python2.7-minimal
speedtest-cli
0 upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,110 kB of archives.
After this operation, 17.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Now, let’s get on with test results on a few VPS’es
1. Stockservers : Frankfurt DC
[email protected]:~$ speedtest
speedtest speedtest-cli
[email protected]:~$ speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Testing from ISPpro Internet KG (81.7.xxx.xxx)…
Retrieving speedtest.net server list…
Selecting best server based on ping…
Hosted by Thueringer Netkom GmbH (Weimar) [132.12 km]: 13.425 ms
Testing download speed……………………………………………………………………..
Download: 310.92 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed…………………………………………………………………………………………
Upload: 4.14 Mbit/s
Update: September 14, 2019:
I re ran the speedtest-cli utility for this server to check the speeds, here are the results that I got:
[email protected]:/tmp$ speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from ISPpro Internet KG (81.7.15.246)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Thueringer Netkom GmbH (Weimar) [132.12 km]: 19.469 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 292.40 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed....................................................................................................
Upload: 173.67 Mbit/s
[email protected]:/tmp$ speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from ISPpro Internet KG (81.7.15.246)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Thueringer Netkom GmbH (Weimar) [132.12 km]: 12.176 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 285.75 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed....................................................................................................
Upload: 187.70 Mbit/s
2. Ram Host (Tinykvm- Dallas)
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Testing from RAM Host (199.180.xxx.xxxx)…
Retrieving speedtest.net server list…
Selecting best server based on ping…
Hosted by Hivelocity Hosting (Dallas, TX) [27.56 km]: 3.372 ms
Testing download speed……………………………………………………………………..
Download: 850.70 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed…………………………………………………………………………………………
Upload: 4.02 Mbit/s
3. Hostslick– Netherlands
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Testing from Kiwiana Hosting Limited (5.253.xxx.xxx)…
Retrieving speedtest.net server list…
Selecting best server based on ping…
Hosted by KKTC TELSIM (Nicosia) [36.85 km]: 132.183 ms
Testing download speed……………………………………………………………………..
Download: 62.06 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed……………………………………………………………………………………….
Upload: 45.99 Mbit/s
4. My – Webhost (Custom VPS)
[email protected]:~$ speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Testing from UAB Interneto vizija (176.223.xxx.xxx)…
Retrieving speedtest.net server list…
Selecting best server based on ping…
Hosted by CPRnet.pl (Wroclaw) [2.58 km]: 24.837 ms
Testing download speed……………………………………………………………………..
Download: 94.16 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed…………………………………………………………………………………………
Upload: 4.08 Mbit/s
5. Gullo’s – Germany
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Testing from Hetzner Online GmbH (148.251.xxx.xxx)…
Retrieving speedtest.net server list…
Selecting best server based on ping…
Hosted by Spacken.net (Hagen) [141.07 km]: 10.288 ms
Testing download speed……………………………………………………………………..
Download: 479.23 Mbit/s
Killed
I did not re-run the cli utility for Gullo’s – because the purpose of the exercise was to see if the command works. At this time, I do not know much about the significance of the results- that is, what do the download and upload speeds mean? As a last step, I tried running the utility from my wife’s Dell Inspiron 13/5000 that runs Windows 10 Linux Mint 19, and got the error:
[email protected]:/tmp$ speedtest –list
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration…
Cannot retrieve speedtest configuration
ERROR: <urlopen error [Error-2] Name of service not known>
Oh well, the learning continues….hope you found this post useful! You can write your comments below or send me an email.
This post was updated on 2019-08-15