Network latency is the delay between sending a network request and receiving a response. Latency is influenced by physical distance, routing complexity, congestion, and server processing time. High latency results in slow page loads, laggy interfaces, and reduced throughput across distributed systems.
Why it matters
Latency directly affects user experience and application responsiveness. Optimizing latency improves performance for APIs, real-time systems, and global applications. Understanding latency helps diagnose slow requests and informs decisions about CDNs, caching, and edge servers.
Examples
A request from Europe to a US-based server may take 100–200 ms, while a request to a nearby CDN edge might take under 20 ms. Lessons like Bandwidth and Latency explain these fundamentals.