Artillery

Overview

Artillery is a performance-testing toolkit for teams working on backend services and browser-driven workflows. It is best suited to developers, QA engineers, and SRE or operations teams that want load testing, Playwright checks, and production monitoring in the same workflow. Its breadth is useful, but the cloud plans impose clear limits on reports, test size, and team access.

The hybrid model pairs a self-hosted CLI with optional Artillery Cloud reporting. Cloud reporting is opt-in for each run, and tests execute in your own environment even when you send reports to the cloud. That separation will appeal to teams that want cloud reporting without moving test execution out of their environment.

Artillery handles load, stress, and soak tests, including distributed runs across AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate, and Azure Container Instances. HTTP, WebSocket, and Socket.IO work out of the box; plugins extend protocol coverage. For a broader category comparison, see Performance Testing Software.

Key features

Distributed performance testing

Distributed execution helps teams apply load across multiple workers, but the practical ceiling depends on the plan: Free allows five workers per test, Team allows 25, and Business has no worker limit. Test duration also rises from 30 minutes on Free to two hours on Team, with no duration cap on Business. Those limits make Free a way to evaluate smaller scenarios, not a fit for long or high-capacity runs.

Playwright and synthetic checks

Artillery can run Playwright scripts as load tests or synthetic checks, bringing browser behavior into performance work alongside API and protocol-level tests. The homepage also describes a Turbo runner beta for sharding and parallelizing large Playwright suites. Because that runner is in beta, teams planning around large suites should treat it as an emerging capability rather than a settled plan benefit.

Integrations and security

Integrations include Datadog, OpenTelemetry, New Relic, Splunk, Honeycomb, and AWS CloudWatch, plus GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, CircleCI, and Azure DevOps. That mix suits teams that want test results alongside existing observability and CI workflows.

Artillery Cloud reports third-party penetration tests, MFA and SSO, audit logging, least-privilege controls, and encryption at rest. Customer data resides in AWS eu-west-1 and is not transferred to another region or third-party services. For the self-hosted CLI, Artillery says its staff cannot access test targets, data, scripts, or metadata. Its security policy commits to acknowledging security reports within 24 hours and providing a more detailed response within two business days.

Pricing

The Free plan costs nothing and includes 30 reports per month, one month of data retention, two team members, five workers per distributed test, tests up to 30 minutes, and 25 E2E test cases per report. It is suitable for small evaluations, but the report and runtime caps make it a poor match for frequent or extended testing.

Team costs $199 a month and raises the limits to 1,000 reports per month, six months of retention, eight members, 25 workers, two-hour tests, and 50 E2E test cases per report. It is the practical step up for a small team running regular tests, though the seat, worker, duration, and case caps still matter as usage grows.

Business costs $499 a month, with 2,500 reports per month and 18 months of retention; it removes the member, worker, test-duration, and E2E case limits. This is the stronger fit for larger teams or more demanding test programs, but the report quota remains capped.

Enterprise add-ons start at $1199/month, billed monthly, and add Enterprise SSO (OIDC and SAML), audit logs, a custom MSA, and support SLAs. Choose this tier when those controls and contractual terms are requirements. Email support and Slack Connect are listed; Slack Connect requires an annual subscription.

Continued overages may degrade service or put an account into read-only mode, so teams near a quota should weigh that operational risk before choosing a tier.

Platforms

Artillery supports API, Linux, macOS, Windows, web, and self-hosted use. That range accommodates command-line and cloud-reporting workflows across common desktop and server environments.

Who it's for

Artillery makes the most sense for application developers, test and QA engineers, and operations or SRE teams responsible for production backends. It is especially compelling when a team needs protocol-level load tests and Playwright-based checks with integrations into its CI and observability stack. Teams that need extensive quotas on a low budget, or that do not need browser testing or cloud reporting, may prefer a narrower tool.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Load, stress, soak, distributed, API, and Playwright testing share one toolkit, reducing the need to split those workflows across products.
• Pros: Tests run in the user's environment, with optional cloud reporting, and the self-hosted CLI keeps staff away from test data and metadata.
• Pros: Broad CI and observability integrations connect testing with common delivery and monitoring systems.
• Cons: Free is tightly capped at 30 monthly reports, five workers, 30-minute tests, and two seats, limiting sustained team use.
• Cons: Team still caps duration, workers, seats, and E2E cases; Business costs $499 a month to remove those limits.
• Cons: Continued overages can degrade service or trigger read-only mode, making quota management important.

Alternatives

Choose Locust if an open-source tool under the MIT license better suits a free, self-hosted workflow. Taurus is another free, open-source option, under Apache 2.0. Apache JMeter is also free and open source, with Java 8 or newer required.

Grafana k6 may suit teams looking for a free plan capped at 500 virtual user hours per month, while its Pro plan is $19 a month. LoadFocus offers a free API monitoring plan with 10,000 checks per month, five-minute check frequency, and one-month retention. OctoPerf provides a free plan with 50 VUs, unlimited tests, a 20-minute duration cap, one parallel run, and one real-browser VU.

Gatling is worth considering for its Basic annual plan at €89 a year, which includes up to 60,000 VUs, one hour of testing, one Load Generator, and two seats. Blackfire.io is an alternative for teams focused on profiling, with a Development plan at €33.25 a month billed yearly and one user.

Verdict

Choose Artillery if your team wants one toolkit for backend load and distributed testing, Playwright scenarios, and production monitoring, especially when running tests in your own environment matters. Its main drawback is the sharp gap between Free and the higher paid quotas: check report use and the limits on your chosen plan, since sustained overages can disrupt access. Teams seeking a free, open-source workflow should consider Locust, Taurus, or Apache JMeter instead.