whatsmydns.net - DNS Propagation Checker
  1. What's My DNS?
  2. DNS Servers

DNS Servers

Welcome to the DNS Server Database, here you will find a comprehensive list of the main DNS servers for various popular ISPs located around the world. This list will help you with finding the best DNS server to use for your Internet connection which will result in fastest and most reliable DNS lookups.

What is a DNS server?

A DNS (Domain Name System) server is what your computer, tablet, phone, or other Internet connected device (even your smart TV) uses to look up DNS records which translate domain names like www.google.com to an IP address like 192.168.2.1. This is required because computers use IP addresses to communicate with each other, but these are hard for humans to remember and can change from time to time.

It can be useful to think of a DNS server like a phone book, if you want to know the phone number of a person or business then you only need to know their name without having to remember their phone number. Additionally, if their phone number was to change then you could simply look them up again to get their new number.

Which DNS server should I use?

Most users typically use the DNS server provided by their ISP, most of the time this happens automatically when you connect your router without needing to make any changes. Usually you don't have to do anything special to set your DNS server.

Some devices may need to manually know what DNS server to use, so finding your ISP in the list provided is a good safe option.

It is important to make sure that you're using a fast and reliable DNS server, which typically means choosing one close to your physical location. This is because before you can visit any website your device must first look up the IP address of the website you're trying to visit. Imagine if you're in the USA and using a DNS server located in Australia, this would mean that your device would first have to connect to a server in Australia to know what IP address to connect to for any website you visit.

Should I use a global DNS server?

While there may be some benefits to using the DNS servers provided by your ISP, there are many advantages of using a global DNS server which should be strongly considered.

These servers are not one but many servers located all around the world so you will always get fast lookup results, they typically use easy to remember addresses and provide security, privacy and reliability that many ISP provided servers do not.

whatsmydns.net recommends using a Global DNS Server whenever possible.

DNS server list by country

DNS server returning incorrect results?

Sometimes DNS servers can return out of date or incorrect results.

You may need to flush your DNS cache after changing DNS servers.

You can also edit your hosts file to make manual overrides on your system.