In early-stage startups, simplicity often wins. I’ve worked in places where speed and budget shape all tooling decisions.
Artillery + Custom Monitoring for Lightweight Scenarios
Following on from the heavier tools like k6 and Gatling—at a lean startup I was part of, we needed something fast and scriptable with almost zero learning curve. Artillery fit perfectly. It’s Node.js-based and defines test cases in simple YAML. For us, the CLI + Grafana combo was enough to visualize test metrics without extra spend.
We didn’t need massive load tests—just solid peak simulations and flow modeling. Artillery let us throttle concurrency, add basic thresholds, and still keep tests easy to maintain. No fancy dashboards or cloud services—just focused, fast feedback.
It’s definitely not for deep enterprise-scale simulation, but for teams prioritizing cost-efficiency, clarity, and fast iteration, this is how we answered how are you approaching load testing in your environment—without overengineering the solution.