Check whether a website is down right now
Enter any address. We request it from our own servers, on a different network, resolver and route from yours, then show exactly what came back and where in the request it failed.
- Run from our servers, not your browser
- Answer in about a second
- No account, no address stored
The short answer: If our servers reach the site and you cannot, the fault is between you and it - Your DNS, your browser cache, an extension, a VPN or your provider. If we cannot reach it either, the site is genuinely down and there is nothing to fix at your end.
What we measure, in order
Four stages, and the request can die at any of them. Knowing which one narrows the cause more than anything else you can do from a browser.
- 1 DNS Name to address Fails: The domain, not the server
- 2 TCP Open a socket Fails: Server off or firewalled
- 3 TLS Agree encryption Fails: Certificate broken
- 4 HTTP Ask for the page Fails: The application itself
Reading the result
| Where it failed | Whose | What it means | Will waiting help? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DNS lookup | either | The name never became an address. Points at the domain or its name servers, and it is often your own resolver rather than theirs. | No. Change resolver, or the domain owner has to fix it. |
| TCP connect | theirs | The name resolved and nothing useful answered. The server is off, overloaded or firewalled. | Often yes. Overload clears on its own. |
| TLS handshake | theirs | The server is running and answering, and its certificate is broken. Browsers refuse the site entirely. The certificate checker shows exactly why. | No. Someone must renew or reload it. |
| HTTP response | either | Everything connected and the application failed. The code is the diagnosis - Look it up here. | Depends on the code. 429 and 503 yes; 404 never. |
Check one of these
Live state from our own monitoring. Click any of them to run a fresh check right now.
Why check from somewhere else?
We cannot reach it either
The site is genuinely down. Nothing at your end will change that, and there is no setting worth touching. See what else is being reported.
We can reach it, you cannot
The fault is between you and the site: A stale DNS cache, a browser cache, an extension, a VPN or your provider. Work through the guides in order.
When a page will not load, your browser cannot tell you which of those it is. It shows the same blank screen whether the server is on fire, your router dropped the connection, your resolver returned the wrong address, or an extension blocked the request. Checking from a second network settles it in one request, because we are on a different network, a different resolver and a different route from you.
When we say up and the site is still broken for you
It happens, and it is informative rather than contradictory. We ask one server for one page from one place. That cannot see a failure confined to your country or provider, a broken mobile app, or a feature failing while the page still loads. If the site answers us and not you, that narrows it to your side and the troubleshooting hub works through the causes in order of how often each turns out to be the answer.
When a status page is the better view
A single check is a snapshot. For the 90 services we watch continuously there is a far better one: A full check history, recorded outages with real durations, a report chart and discussion. Browse the directory to see whether what you are checking is one of them.