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DevOps · Courses

Grafana k6: load and performance testing

A complete course on performance testing with Grafana k6: scripts, scenarios, thresholds, observability with Prometheus and Grafana, browser tests, synthetic monitoring, CI and Kubernetes.

8 chapters13 lessonsEN
At your pace, through practice.

By the end of this course you will be able to

  • Choose the right type of test for an objective
  • Write k6 scripts with scenarios and executors
  • Define thresholds aligned with SLOs
  • Observe a test with Prometheus and Grafana
  • Automate tests in CI and on Kubernetes

🎯 Level : Intermediate👥 Who it is for : Developers, testers, SREs and DevOps engineers who want to validate the performance of their applications before and after going to production

LEARNING PATH

Course curriculum

0Course overview1 lesson
  1. Assessment quizQuiz · ⏱ 10 min
1Introduction1 lesson

Why test, types of tests and k6.

  1. Why load test?Article · ⏱ 3 min
2Writing scripts2 lessons

Requests, checks, scenarios and executors.

  1. Writing k6 scriptsArticle · ⏱ 10 min
  2. Lab: First k6 test with checks and thresholdsHands-on lab · ⏱ 30 min · Level 1/5
3Thresholds and metrics2 lessons

Measure and decide.

  1. Thresholds, metrics and resultsArticle · ⏱ 6 min
  2. Lab: Scenarios, constant arrival rate and stress testingHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 3/5
4Observing a test3 lessons

Prometheus, Grafana and correlation.

  1. Observing a k6 testArticle · ⏱ 4 min
  2. Lab: k6 results in Prometheus and GrafanaHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 3/5
  3. Lab: Browser test and Core Web VitalsHands-on lab · ⏱ 35 min · Level 3/5
5Browser and synthetic1 lesson

Web Vitals and continuous monitoring.

  1. Browser and synthetic monitoringArticle · ⏱ 7 min
6CI and Kubernetes2 lessons

Automate and distribute.

  1. k6 in CI and on KubernetesArticle · ⏱ 6 min
  2. Final Lab: Blocking performance test in continuous integrationHands-on lab · ⏱ 40 min · Level 3/5
7Best practices1 lesson

Recommended practices for running the product in production.

  1. k6 best practicesArticle · ⏱ 4 min

LEARN BY DOING

Use cases & applications

Validate a production release

Prove that a release meets its SLO under load.

Prepare for a traffic peak

Sales, launches, campaigns: know your capacity.

Detect regressions

Blocking performance test in CI.

Monitor continuously

Synthetic journeys and alerts.

Recommended prerequisites

DevOps: From Discovery to Expertise

What next?

SRE in practice: SLIs, SLOs and error budgetsGrafana Faro: front-end observability and RUMGrafana: From Discovery to Expertise

Frequently asked questions

Is k6 free?

Yes, k6 is open source (AGPLv3). Grafana Cloud additionally offers managed distributed execution and synthetic monitoring.

Do I need to know how to code?

Basic JavaScript is enough: scripts are short and the course examples are complete.

How many users can one machine simulate?

Several thousand HTTP VUs on a decent machine; beyond that, you distribute the load with k6-operator.

k6 or JMeter?

k6 favours tests written as code, versioned and automated in CI, with low resource consumption; JMeter offers a graphical interface and a large plugin ecosystem.