I Don’t Use JMeter or LoadRunner

Why K6 and Locust Are My Performance Testing Tools of Choice

As a Senior SDET with extensive experience across fintech, e-commerce, and cloud solutions, I’ve witnessed the evolution of performance testing tools firsthand. After years of using traditional solutions like JMeter and LoadRunner, I made a deliberate switch to K6 and Locust — a decision that transformed our testing approach and delivered significant advantages.

The Limitations of Traditional Performance Testing Tools

JMeter and LoadRunner have long dominated the performance testing landscape, and for good reason. They’re comprehensive and battle-tested. However, as applications became more complex and development cycles shortened, several limitations became increasingly apparent:

JMeter’s GUI-based approach proved cumbersome for version control and CI/CD integration. While it supports scripting, the workflow often involved creating tests through the interface before extracting them for automation.

LoadRunner, while powerful, came with licensing costs that didn’t scale well with growing testing needs. Its proprietary nature created vendor lock-in that limited flexibility as our testing requirements evolved.