performance-testing

Performance Testing

Ensure your systems handle load with comprehensive performance testing.

When to Use

• Establishing performance baselines
• Load testing before releases
• Stress testing to find breaking points
• Capacity planning
• Identifying bottlenecks

Performance Test Types

Type	Purpose	Load Pattern
Load Test	Verify expected load	Steady, target users
Stress Test	Find breaking point	Ramp up until failure
Spike Test	Handle sudden traffic	Quick spike, then down
Soak Test	Find memory leaks	Steady load, long duration
Scalability	Auto-scaling validation	Step increases

k6 Load Testing

Installation

# macOS
brew install k6

# Docker
docker run -i grafana/k6 run - <script.js

Basic Load Test

// tests/load/basic.js
import http from 'k6/http';
import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  stages: [
    { duration: '2m', target: 100 }, // Ramp up to 100 users
    { duration: '5m', target: 100 }, // Stay at 100 users
    { duration: '2m', target: 0 },   // Ramp down
  ],
  thresholds: {
    http_req_duration: ['p(95)<500'], // 95% of requests < 500ms
    http_req_failed: ['rate<0.01'],   // Error rate < 1%
  },
};

export default function () {
  const response = http.get('https://api.example.com/users');

  check(response, {
    'status is 200': (r) => r.status === 200,
    'response time < 500ms': (r) => r.timings.duration < 500,
  });

  sleep(1); // Think time between requests
}

Stress Test

// tests/load/stress.js
import http from 'k6/http';
import { check } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  stages: [
    { duration: '2m', target: 100 },
    { duration: '5m', target: 100 },
    { duration: '2m', target: 200 },
    { duration: '5m', target: 200 },
    { duration: '2m', target: 300 },
    { duration: '5m', target: 300 },
    { duration: '2m', target: 400 }, // Breaking point?
    { duration: '5m', target: 400 },
    { duration: '10m', target: 0 },  // Recovery
  ],
};

export default function () {
  const response = http.get('https://api.example.com/search?q=test');

  check(response, {
    'status is 200': (r) => r.status === 200,
    'no errors': (r) => !r.body.includes('error'),
  });
}