How to Test Your Internet Speed from the Command Line

Well the speedtest facility by Ookla makes it pretty convenient to test your internet connection speed. But what if you could just measure it without actually using your browser? Yes, you can measure your internet connection speed by using speedtest-cli on command prompt in any operating system. Well trust me, doing this is as easy as typing the word speedtest on command prompt once you install speedtest-cli.

Installing speedtest-cli On Ubuntu (and Other Linux Distros)

Installing speedtest-cli on Ubuntu (and other Debian-based distros) is as easy as pie. Just run one command:

sudo apt install speedtest-cli

The command might differ somewhat on other Linux distributions, so check your distro’s package manager and look for a package named speedtest-cli.

Installing speedtest-cli on macOS Using Homebrew

The simplest way to install speedtest-cli on a Mac is using Homebrew, the open source package manager for Mac. 

Once Homebrew is set up, you can install speedtest-cli with a simple command:

brew install speedtest_cli

Note: The underscore in the package name for some reason is different in Homebrew than the Linux package manager.

Installing speedtest-cli On Windows

This is slightly more complicated, but totally doable. First you’ll have to to install Python on Windows, which basically means downloading the correct installer and ensuring that python and pip are both added to your system PATH.

Once you’re done with that, installing speedtest-cli is just needs running one command:

pip install speedtest-cli

You can now use speedtest-cli on Windows. 

Note: You can use pip to install speedtest-cli on Linux and macOS systems, but it’s simpler to use the system-wide package manager for the sake of consistency.