Build & Ship · Testing & Quality

Performance Testing

10 paid against 11 free you can run yourself.

Paid against free › Build & Ship › Testing & Quality › Performance Testing · Building the product on Repo Radar

Performance testing tools simulate many users or requests to see how an application behaves under load: response times, errors and breaking points. Most paid services run open-source engines in the cloud: Grafana Cloud k6, Gatling Enterprise and Artillery run their own engines, while BlazeMeter, OctoPerf, LoadFocus and Azure Load Testing run JMeter (and Locust or k6) at scale. LoadView and LoadNinja focus on real-browser load, and Loader.io on simple URL tests. On the open-source side, k6, Locust, Gatling, JMeter and Artillery are full frameworks, while Vegeta, oha, Fortio, Goose and bombardier are lighter load generators. Marks come from vendor pricing pages and project READMEs as of 19 October 2026; nothing was tested hands-on.

Free 11 direct · 24 related

Free to use. You run it on your own server.

Direct alternatives

They do this job.

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A second choice: they cover part of this job or are a building block for it.

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Feature by feature

Every paid tool and free repository we compared, marked against the same features.

✓has itPartlysome plans or extra work—confirmed not available?not confirmed✓the vendor's claim onlypricingClick a mark for its note and source

Paid · 10Free · 10
Featuregrafana/k6locustio/locustgatling/gatlingapache/jmeterartilleryio/artillerytsenart/vegetahatoo/ohafortio/fortiotag1consulting/goosecodesenberg/bombardier
Starts at$19 per month plus $0.15 per virtual user hour (Pro)$1,188 a year (Basic), or $149 billed monthly€89 per month billed annually (Basic)$199 per month (Team)$99 per 1,000-VU test (Pay-Per-Test)$129 per month billed annually (Subscription)$99.95 per month (Pro)$0.15 per virtual user hour$350 per 25 hours (100 VUs)$29 per month billed yearly (Starter)AGPL-3.0MITApache-2.0Apache-2.0MPL-2.0MITMITApache-2.0Apache-2.0MIT
Authoring
Test scenarios as codeWrite load scenarios in a programming language or config file.
GUI or no-code test builderBuild tests in a graphical interface without code.
Load
Real browser loadDrive real browsers to measure front-end performance under load.
Distributed or cloud load generationGenerate load from many machines or a managed cloud.
Multiple geographic locationsGenerate traffic from several regions.
Protocols
HTTP and API loadLoad-test web endpoints and APIs.
Protocols beyond HTTPgRPC, WebSockets, databases, messaging and others.
Workflow
CI/CD integrationRun tests in pipelines.
Thresholds and pass/fail criteriaFail a run automatically when limits are crossed.
Analysis
Results dashboard and reportsCharts and reports of response times and errors.
Compatibility
JMeter script supportRun existing Apache JMeter test plans.
Deployment
Self-hosted or on-premise generatorsGenerate load from your own machines or cloud account.
Pricing
Free tierA free plan or free usage allowance.
Licence
Open sourceSource published under an open licence.

Excluded candidates

Looked at, and left out of the comparison, with the reason.

Paid apps

  • Tricentis NeoLoadTricentis NeoLoad is an enterprise performance testing product whose page offers demos and quotes rather than published prices.Source

Repositories

  • schemathesis/schemathesisSchemathesis generates test cases from API schemas to catch bugs. It is property-based API testing rather than load or performance testing.Source
  • oxc-project/oxcOxc is a collection of high-performance JavaScript tools such as a parser and linter. It is fast tooling, not a performance testing tool.Source
  • PragmaticFlow/NBomberNBomber is a distributed load testing framework for .NET, but its README says organisations need a paid licence; it is free for personal use only.Source
  • mcollina/autocannonautocannon is an HTTP/1.1 benchmarking tool in Node.js with no push since 16 May 2026. oha and bombardier cover quick HTTP benchmarks here.Source
  • rakyll/heyhey is an HTTP load generator and ApacheBench replacement with no push since 10 January 2026. oha (G7) continues the same idea with active releases.Source
  • wg/wrkwrk is a modern HTTP benchmarking tool, but it has had no push since 30 December 2023 and its GitHub issues are turned off.Source
  • naver/ngrindernGrinder was an enterprise performance testing platform, and its repository is archived with the last push on 10 October 2024.Source
  • Blazemeter/taurusTaurus is an automation wrapper that runs JMeter, Gatling, Locust and other tools from one config. It drives the selected engines rather than generating load itself.Source
  • bojand/ghzghz is a gRPC benchmarking and load testing tool. It covers gRPC only, which k6 (G1) and Fortio (G8) also support.Source
  • yandex/yandex-tankYandex.Tank is a load and performance benchmark tool that wraps load generators. It overlaps JMeter and Gatling with a smaller, mainly Russian-language community.Source
  • baidu/dperfdperf is a DPDK-based network load testing tool for very high packet rates. It tests network equipment rather than applications.Source
  • karatelabs/karateKarate is a test automation framework for APIs and UI. Its performance testing works through Gatling (G3), which is selected directly.Source
  • fcsonline/drillDrill is an HTTP load testing application in Rust driven by YAML plans. It overlaps oha and Goose, which have more active development.Source

Gaps

What the research could not settle from the vendors' own pages.

What vendors don't publish

  • Vendors price by different units (virtual user hours, concurrent users, tests per year, load testing hours, clients per test), so plans with similar prices allow very different amounts of testing.Grafana Cloud k6, BlazeMeter, LoadNinja, LoadFocus · checked 2026-10-19 · source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4
  • BlazeMeter does not publish prices for its Unleashed and AWS Marketplace plans.BlazeMeter · checked 2026-10-19 · source 1
  • Azure Load Testing prices are shown as estimates that vary with the purchase agreement and currency.Azure Load Testing · checked 2026-10-19 · source 1

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