A home Wi-Fi router on a hallway shelf at night, its lights glowing, a laptop on a sofa in the background

Fix slow internet

Slow internet? Find the weak link.

Weak Wi-Fi, a busy router, your provider, slow DNS or a backup in the background all feel the same. Kilobat checks each link in the chain and tells you which one is the problem, in plain English.

Download for Mac ↓
brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat
  • Free forever
  • Pro $19 once
  • 14-day refunds
  • macOS 14+
  • Open-source CLI
Pro

Getting warmer. Keep going.

This Mac−48 dBm
Router2 ms
Internet24 ms
DNS212 ms

DNS lookups are slow. Compare Cloudflare or Google DNS, then restore Automatic if it does not help.

Sound familiar?

Six links. One is weak.

A page loads only as fast as the slowest step between your Mac and the site. Kilobat measures each one.

  1. Your MacAnother app uploading, a VPN or proxy in the way
  2. Wi-FiSignal, noise, band and channel crowding
  3. RouterLatency and loss to the router itself
  4. ProviderLatency, jitter and loss beyond your router
  5. DNSHow long each lookup takes
  6. The siteConnect, TLS and first-byte timing

Symptoms, causes, and what to try.

Kilobat doesn’t stop at “slow”. With Pro, Health says where, and what to do about it, like: “DNS lookups are slow. Compare Cloudflare or Google DNS, then restore Automatic if it does not help.”

  1. Every new site hesitates, then loads fast

    Slow DNS lookups.

    Times your resolver, then switch to Cloudflare, Google or Quad9 in one click and back to Automatic. Pro

  2. Slow in one room, fine in another

    Wi-Fi signal or a crowded channel.

    Signal radar walks you to a stronger spot; channel crowding names a quieter channel for your router. Pro

  3. Slow whenever someone else is online

    The router or the line is saturated.

    Router and internet latency side by side, and latency under load in the speed test. Free

  4. Speed test fine, video calls choppy

    Short spikes and loss that averages hide.

    The stutter test pings every 50 ms and draws every spike. Free

  5. One site or app fails, the rest work

    A proxy, VPN, DNS or the server itself.

    Why can’t it connect? tests the path that app uses and names the layer that broke. Free

  6. Drops every evening

    Your provider.

    Health records outages and latency over time; the report button turns them into a summary for your provider. Pro

Diagnosis

Why can’t it connect?

Name a site or an app and Kilobat checks Wi-Fi, VPN and proxy, DNS, its own rules, the connection and the server’s answer, using the same request and path the app itself uses. Then it names the layer that broke and what to do next.

Terminal
# Find the layer that stops a connection
$ kilobat why example.com
# Wi-Fi, router, internet, DNS and login-page checks with advice
$ kilobat diagnose
# DNS, connect, TLS and first-byte timing for one URL
$ kilobat http-check https://example.com
Free
  1. Network
  2. VPN · Gotham VPN
  3. DNS · 28 ms
  4. Night Drive’s own proxy

The app’s proxy isn’t answering.

Why can’t it connect? Kilobat tests the request and path the app itself uses, its own proxy, IPv6 and tunnels included, and names the layer that broke.

Speed test

Speed tests that explain themselves.

Each result records the server it reached, how many connections it used, and the network, Wi-Fi band, signal and VPN at the time. Compare any two tests and Kilobat says what differed, so “it was faster yesterday” gets an answer. Ping under load shows bufferbloat as a number, and a verdict says whether calls, video and streaming will hold up.

Free, capped at 80 MB per test, and skipped on metered networks unless you start it.

Free
228Mbps down↑ 44 Mbps · 24 ms
Stutter test3 spikes
Median5 msp9996 msWorst182 ms
  • Voice calls
  • Video · 1080p
  • Streaming · 4K

Will this call hold up? A speed test for capacity, and a stutter test for the short spikes that speed tests average away.

Provider report

Proof for your provider.

The report button in Health covers what Kilobat measured on this network over 24 hours or 7 days: outages, latency at the router and beyond, ping loss, speed tests against your plan and a check of the site that fails. Copy it as text or save it as a PDF. It leaves out your network’s name, every local address, device names and which apps used the network, and says so.

Pro
Your provider44.2 GB
Kilobat41.8 GB
Difference2.4 GB less
Recorded 668 of 720 hours · asleep, off or on other networks for the rest
  • Phones and TVs on the same plan
  • The provider’s day starts at midnight UTC

Your provider says more? Put their figure beside Kilobat’s for the same period, with the hours Kilobat recorded and the likely reasons for a difference.

What’s free, and what Pro adds

Free, for good

  • Speed tests with latency under load, and comparing two tests
  • The stutter test
  • Why can’t it connect?, for any site or app
  • Signal, noise, router and internet latency at a glance
  • A report for your provider
  • kilobat diagnose, why, trace and the rest of the CLI

Pro, $19 once

  • Findings with a fix for router, DNS and login-page trouble
  • Outage and latency history
  • One-click DNS switching
  • Signal radar, scans and channel crowding

Pro is $19 once for two Macs, with a 7-day free trial and 14-day refunds. Free for students.

Questions

Is the check free?

Speed and stutter tests, Why can’t it connect?, the provider report and the CLI’s diagnose are free. Findings with a fix in the app, radar and history are part of Pro, $19 once, with a 7-day free trial.

Can my AI agent run it?

Yes. kilobat diagnose --json and the MCP server give agents the same measurements and advice. See the docs.

Does Kilobat change my network settings?

Only when you ask, such as switching DNS, and it puts Automatic back with one click. Diagnosis only reads.

My speed test is fast. Why does it feel slow?

Speed tests measure how much fits through the line. Browsing feels slow when lookups, the first byte or short spikes are slow, which a big download hides. Kilobat measures those separately.

Stop guessing. Fix the right thing.

Download for Mac ↓
brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat