a Speedtest alternative in the menu bar
updated · by Anton Shakirov
Speedtest by Ookla is the name everyone reaches for, and its numbers are solid. it is also not the only measurement on your Mac, and not the one that explains why your calls fall apart. macOS has measured its own connection since Monterey, hop runs that same measurement from the panel, and neither costs anything.
if you need a reference number to quote at a provider, Ookla is the name they recognise and this page will not talk you out of it. if you want to know whether the call you are about to join will hold, the number you need is not the one Ookla shows you.
what Speedtest by Ookla is built for
measurement as a service: a large server network, a specific server you can pick, results kept against your account, and a name that carries weight when you are arguing with a provider. it does one job and has done it for twenty years.
on the Mac it is free. checked on 10 september 2026, the Mac App Store listing shows no in-app purchases at all. the paid tiers you may have seen (about a dollar to remove ads, about five a month for the VPN) belong to the phone versions. what the Mac version costs you is the browser tab, the advertising on the page, and the cookie dialogue in front of it.
the price and the absence of in-app purchases were read off the Mac App Store listing itself rather than a review site, on 10 september 2026. Speedtest by Ookla — Mac App Store
the same measurement without installing anything at all, step by step: test your internet speed without installing anything
the speed test already on your Mac
since macOS Monterey there is a command called networkQuality. it measures against Apple's own infrastructure, it reports more than any web test, and it has been there the whole time. it has a manual page and no window — no icon, no menu item, nothing that would tell you it exists. that is why not one of the pages ranking for «Speedtest alternative Mac» in september 2026 mentions it.
what the numbers actually looked like
these are the lines this Mac printed on macOS 26.6.2 on 10 september 2026, not a description of them. download 188 Mbps, upload 149 Mbps, idle latency 146 ms, or 409 round trips a minute at rest. under load: 12.
read those last two together. a connection any web test would call excellent manages 409 round trips a minute at rest and collapses to 12 when it is busy, a thirty-fourfold drop. that is why a call breaks up while a download continues perfectly happily, and it is on no web test's results page.
why round trips per minute and not milliseconds
responsiveness is counted in RPM: how many sequential round trips the link completes in a minute while it is loaded. Apple grades the result low, medium or high rather than publishing cutoffs, and the grading is about consequence: low means some apps will be unreliable, medium means momentary freezes, high means things hold.
Apple's own description of the test, the RPM metric and what low, medium and high mean in practice. test Wi-Fi networks with Apple network responsiveness — Apple support
why the measurement is taken under working conditions rather than on an idle line, written up as a standards draft rather than a vendor claim. responsiveness under working conditions — ietf draft
the reasoning behind reporting round trips per minute instead of latency in milliseconds, from the session where Apple introduced it. reduce network delays for your app — wwdc21
what the panel shows, what the command shows, and where the two differ: internet speed test for Mac
so what should you actually do
if you check your connection a few times a year, open Terminal and type networkQuality. it is free, it is already there, it reports more than Ookla does, and nothing further down this page changes that. add -s and it splits responsiveness by direction; add -I en0 and it settles a Wi-Fi versus cable argument honestly.
the simple case stops being simple when you want the number before a call rather than after a bad one. a test you have to remember the name of and wait forty seconds through is a test you run once, and once is the wrong number of times for something that changes hour to hour.
how hop runs the same speedtest
hop runs macOS's own networkQuality against the same Apple servers, and shows download, upload and responsiveness in the panel row. the numbers are no more accurate than Ookla's, and no more accurate than Terminal's. they are a different measurement, one tap away rather than forty seconds and a command away.
| what you are doing | Speedtest by Ookla | with hop |
|---|---|---|
| putting a figure in a complaint to your provider | this is the one to use, they know the name | not for this, go and use Ookla |
| checking before a call whether the line will hold | download looks fine, and tells you nothing | responsiveness in the row, one tap |
| testing from three rooms in five minutes | reload the page and the ads three times | three taps from the menu bar |
| wanting the reading without a browser tab | web page, or an app in the Dock for it | already in the panel |
| not wanting the test reported anywhere | a measuring service sits in the middle | Apple's servers, nothing stored but the last row |
what else the same panel is watching while the test runs: load, memory, temperatures: system monitor for Mac
where Speedtest by Ookla is better
five things, and none of them are small. the server network is the first: Ookla has thousands of them, and the one nearest you is nearer than Apple's. the second follows from it. you can pick a specific server, which is the only honest way to test a route to a particular place rather than a route in general.
third, history: Ookla keeps your past results against an account, so you can show a provider a month of them, while hop keeps the last reading in the row and the command keeps nothing at all. fourth, it compares your figure with other people's in your city, which is context neither alternative here can produce. fifth, it runs on phones, tablets and consoles, and a Mac menu bar tool by definition does not.
the system measurement cannot do any of this: it talks to servers Apple chooses and exists only on Apple's platforms. if you need a documented series of comparable numbers, that is Ookla's job.
the same argument in another shape: a paid tool that goes deeper, next to a free one that is enough for most people: iStat Menus alternative
when the speedtest number is not the problem
a speed test answers one question, and people ask it of three different problems. worth separating them before blaming the provider.
- slow on this Mac only — usually Wi-Fi, distance or a wall, not the line
- slow on one site — that site, or the route to it
- calls stutter but downloads are fine — responsiveness, not bandwidth
- slow everywhere, on every device, all day — now it is worth calling the provider
running the test from the room you actually work in, rather than next to the router, is most of the diagnosis.
one case where every number looks right and nothing loads at all: fix a vpn with no internet
and the one where the connection was fine until the Mac woke up: reconnect a vpn that drops after sleep
how to try it without deciding anything
- grab hop: roughly 6 mb, nothing to sign up for, macOS 14 and up
- run the test before your next call and note the responsiveness figure, not the download one
- run it again from a different room and compare the two
- run it once more while a large upload is going, and watch what happens to the same line
- if you ever need a result to quote at a provider, go and get an Ookla one
and if the answer turns out to be the VPN rather than the line, it switches from the same panel: vpn switcher for Mac
frequently asked questions
- does macOS have a built-in speed test?
- yes, the networkQuality command in Terminal, since Monterey. it reports capacity, responsiveness and idle latency, measured against Apple's own infrastructure. it has a manual page but no window and no menu item, which is why almost nobody knows it is there.
- is there a free speed test for Mac without ads?
- two of them. networkQuality in Terminal costs nothing and shows nothing but numbers, and hop runs the same measurement from the menu bar. neither opens a web page.
- which servers does it measure against?
- Apple's own, the same infrastructure macOS uses for its network quality check. no third-party measuring service is involved.
- why is my wifi fast but calls stutter?
- because the two are different measurements. on the Mac used for this page the line managed 409 round trips a minute at rest and 12 under load, on 188 Mbps down. bandwidth was never the problem; delay while the link is busy was.
- does it keep a history of results?
- no. the last reading stays in the panel row and that is all: nothing is kept over time and nothing is uploaded. if you need a series, that is what Ookla's account is for.
- are the numbers more accurate than Ookla's?
- no, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling a wrapper as an engine. they are the system's own numbers, against different servers, with responsiveness added. the difference is what gets measured and how easily, not precision.
- will my provider accept these numbers?
- for a formal complaint they will recognise an Ookla result, and that is a fair reason to run one. this is for knowing, not for arguing.
the hop side of this
speed test — download, upload and responsiveness — measured through Apple's own servers.
about the author
Anton Shakirovmakes hop
makes hop and every page on this site. eighteen tools under a single menu bar icon, MIT licensed and open source. reads and answers issues and email himself.