Online traceroute
See the path packets take from our test server to an address or hostname, hop by hop, with the latency at each step — the tool for finding where along the route a connection gets slow or breaks.
AS20473 · 108.61.178.84216.73.216.52| Hop | IP address | Hostname | Network | Country | Round-trip time |
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Run a traceroute
Press Trace: the path from our Frankfurt server to your address, hop by hop. Our server traces only to the address you are connecting from — it refuses any other target, so it can never be used to probe third parties — and a browser cannot trace from your device; for the path from your device to a server, use your system's own tool (steps below).
Hop-by-hop results
One row per hop with its address, hostname, network and three round-trip measurements.
Hop, RTT and loss
Each hop is a router that decremented the packet's time-to-live to zero and sent back an error; the three times are three probes. Rising times are normal with distance; a jump of tens of milliseconds between two hops is a long link or congestion; loss at one hop that does not persist afterwards is just that router de-prioritizing error replies.
Asterisks (* * *)
No reply from that hop within the timeout. A single row of asterisks in the middle with normal rows after it is a router that does not answer probes — harmless. Asterisks from some hop to the end mean the target or a firewall in front of it blocks the probes, or the path is broken there.
How to read a traceroute
Read it like a journey: the first hops are our provider, then transit networks (names like ae-1.cr1.fra.example.net encode router, interface and city), then the target's provider, then the target. The hop where the hostname's network changes from one provider to another is a handover point; latency added there is the other network's. Only the trend matters — a single slow hop that is faster afterwards was slow at replying, not at forwarding. Reverse paths can differ from forward paths, so a problem you see from home may not appear from here; run both.
How to run traceroute on Windows, Mac and Linux
To trace from your own device:
Windows tracert
tracert example.com in Command Prompt or PowerShell (tracert -d skips name lookups and is faster).
macOS / Linux traceroute
traceroute example.com (macOS has it built in; on Linux install the traceroute package or use tracepath). traceroute -I uses ICMP like Windows does; the default uses UDP, which some firewalls treat differently.
mtr
mtr example.com combines traceroute and ping, repeating the trace continuously and showing loss and jitter per hop — the best tool for intermittent problems. Available for macOS (Homebrew), Linux (package) and Windows (WinMTR).
Frequently asked questions
What does traceroute actually do?
It sends packets with increasing time-to-live values; each router along the way that drops a packet when the TTL reaches zero reports back, revealing its address and the time it took. The list of these routers is the route.
How do you use traceroute?
Run it towards the host you are having trouble with, from the device that has the trouble, and look for where latency jumps or replies stop. Compare with a trace from another network (this page, from Frankfurt) to see whether the problem is near you or near the target.
How do I run a traceroute command in Windows?
Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and type tracert example.com. Add -d to skip reverse name lookups.
What's the difference between tracert and traceroute?
Same purpose, different default probes: Windows tracert uses ICMP echo; Unix traceroute uses UDP by default (ICMP with -I). Output formats differ slightly; the route they reveal is the same.
What is the Windows equivalent of traceroute?
tracert — built into every Windows version. pathping is a slower variant that also measures loss per hop.
How do I run a traceroute on Windows 11?
Right-click Start › Terminal (or search for cmd), then type tracert example.com and press Enter. The output lists up to 30 hops.
Trace run live by our own server in Frankfurt (probe-fra1, AS20473) towards your address; hop networks from the CheckMyIP lookup service and the iptoasn table, names from reverse DNS. Nothing is stored.