Why my qBittorrent download speed is so low?

Here are the factors that may impact your qBittorrent download speed:

1. Your Internet connection speed - Do a speed test by visiting https://www.speedtest.net. You may get something like:

Download speed: 59.32 MiB/s 
Upload speed: 11.89 MiB/s

2. Speed limit settings on qBittorrent - Go to "Tools > Options > Speed" and set "Global Rate Limits":

Upload: 5 MiB/s
Download: 10 MiB/s 

3. Number of connected peers - You can disconnect some peers to reduce the overhead time involved in managing peer connects to improve qBittorrent performance.

4. Listening port and incoming connections. Make sure qBittorrent can receive incoming connections to upload files. If your computer is on local network and connected to the Internet through a router, you need to make changes on the router to forward incoming connections to the port qBittorrent is listening. The listening port is defined on "Tools > Options > Connections".

Port used to incoming connections: 8999 

This is an important factor for your download speed. Without incoming connections, your share ratio (upload/download) will be 0. Some Torrent networks may intentionally lower your actual download speed, if your share ratio is < 1.0.

5. Local Peer Discovery - Disable Local Peer Discovery option on "Tools > Options > BitTorrent". Don't wast time on finding peers on your local network, unless you are on a large campus network.

In general, qBittorrent is designed to be friendly and keeps the download speed at a low level. So you will never get qBittorrent download speed maximized to your Internet connection speed.

⇒ Using qBittorrent-nox on Linux

⇐ qBittorrent - Monitor Download Progress

⇑ Introduction to BitTorrent File Sharing

⇑⇑ BitTorrent - Frequently Asked Questions