This is k6
The story of how we got started on the journey to providing a load testing SaaS app
It all started with a game...
In the year 2000, with the Y2K crisis in the rear view mirror, the two founders were working on a MMORPG. With a goal to support hundreds of players simultaneously the need for some early load testing arose. They opted to open a consultancy to aid organizations in load testing. The most notable customer from this era was the European Space Agency where we got to test IP satellite networks.
...then we added some Alligators...
Meanwhile - one of the founders started to take on a new hobby. An interest in reptiles, specifically Spectacled Caiman alligators. Two of them soon moved into our Stockholm office, Bert and Ed. Bert proved to be mischievous, and escaped on a few occasions. They eventually moved out to go live in more appropriate accommodations - however Bert’s legacy lives on serving as our mascot.
…we then shifted from consultancy to a SaaS organization….
Fast-forwarding to the year 2008 after years of consulting, we shifted gears yet again. The concept of “cloud computing” was emerging and the possibility to bring the load testing tool we created to market became a viable business model. Initially the focus was on website testing - DevOps was still a fringe concept only recently being coined.
… we knew gaps still existed in the market …
In tandem with the growth of DevOps, we started to notice gaps emerging in the market that we knew we could address. Users were no longer testing things one-off. APIs were becoming more prevalent in usage and required testing. Users wanted to test continuously. For many companies, testing was moving into the responsibility of developers.
… we decided to build a new tool from the ground up …
In 2016, Bert and the LoadImpact crew started working on a new open-source load testing tool. A tool that developers could love in the 21st century.
Moving on to the present day, early adoption has been fantastic and the k6 community quickly grew. We have something special in our hands and look forward to building it with you.
… extending core k6 …
Early 2020 we launched the first tool to extend core k6.
The xk6 extensions ecosystem is ever expanding, allowing for better integrations in users' existing stack.
… we joined Grafana Labs …
June 2021 we were acquired by Grafana Labs. Announced by Raj Dutt during his closing keynote at GrafanaCONline, we welcomed the opportunity to accelerate on our mission: to give modern engineering teams better tools to build reliable applications.
Ana Yankova
Backend Developer
Andrey Slotin
Engineering Manager
Ankur Agarwal
xk6-browser Developer
Artem Charykov
Data Engineer
Ben Simpson
Frontend Engineer
Bill Rainaud
Inside Account Executive
Carlos Ruiz Lantero
Backend developer
Daniel González Lopes
Technical Program Manager
Dhia Abbassi
Backend Software Engineer
Dougal Matthews
Senior Software Engineer
Edgar Fišer
Frontend Engineer
Edvinas Daugirdas
Frontend Engineer
Federico Tedin
Backend Software Engineer
Imma Valls
Community Support Engineer
Inanc Gumus
k6 Developer
Ivan Mirić
k6 Developer
Ivan Palladino
k6 Developer
Johan Suleiko Allansson
Frontend Developer
Lukasz Gut
Senior Software Engineer
Leandro Melendez
Developer Advocate
Llandy Riveron Del Risco
Backend Software Engineer
Maja Vojnoska
UX Designer
Marat Goliaviev
Backend Software Engineer
Marie Drake
Developer Advocate
Mark Meier
Product Manager
Marko Pandurovic
Senior Backend developer
Marlind Parllaku
Frontend Engineer
Matt Dodson
Technical Content Writer
Mihail Stoykov
k6 Developer
Nedyalko Andreev
k6 Developer
Nicole van der Hoeven
Senior Developer Advocate
Niklas Hedborg
CFO
Oleg Bespalov
k6 Developer
Oleksandr Kotov
Backend Software Engineer
Olha Yevtushenko
Senior Software Engineer
Paul Balogh
Developer Advocate
Pablo Chacin
Technical Lead, Chaos Eng.
Pawel Suwala
CTO
Pepe Cano
Content & Marketing
Rafa Muñoz Cárdenas
Backend Software Engineer
Rajesh Mahalingaswamy
Principal Solutions Architect
Robin Gustafsson
CEO
Samuel Regandell
Senior Backend developer
Simon Legander
Frontend Lead
Tiffany Kidwell
Customer Success Manager
Théo Crevon
k6 Developer
Thomas Wikman
Senior Frontend Engineer
Tom Miseur
Technical Specialist
Uladzimir Dzmitrachkou
Senior Frontend Engineer
Viacheslav Karhaltsev
DevOps Engineer
Viktor Mihajlović
Customer Success Engineer
Wei Li
Product Marketing Manager
What our users are saying
I’ve been trying a bunch of different tech lately for load testing and man nothing comes close to how good @k6_io is
@k6_io thank you for creating an amazing open source product. I wrote my own thread ripper for load testing and you just saved my socks with the integration tools you have by default. Anyone looking to do load testing highly recommend using k6. It also reminds me of snowboarding.
It's time for me to once again sing the praises of @k6_io. If you've ever written a load test I think you'll likely agree it is the grungiest of grungy tasks. k6 makes it fun. It's like Greasemonkey for load testing. Cannot recommend enough.
I'm 90% complet on my #PoC and in my professional opinion @k6_io is definitely a #gamechanger for #performance #testing allows #shiftleft excellent #docs support 4 #Docker #javascript custom #metrics and establish #thresholds to pass/fail #cicd builds for both #webui & #API
I've toyed with a few load testing tools over the years, but only today tried @k6_io, and wow, is it pleasant to use. Haven't tried the hosted version, but for quick and easy CLI stuff, absolutely wonderful.
Toying around with @k6_io tonight. Pretty impressed with how easy it is to set up (yay @Docker!) and to start building test scripts. Some early results: pic.twitter.com/LGCESvFMlv
I love products like @k6_io - very technical and geeky domain, yet the product is extremely user friendly and you can understand and start using it within *seconds*, not even minutes. Great job.
personally using @k6_io and its has helped us quite a lot already. Definitely worth adding to your testing pipeline.
Lately I have been using @k6_io for performance testing the RESTful APIs we build and I simply fell in love with it. It so simple and easy to use, i highly recommend it!!
Loving @k6_io for integrating perf tests into @AzureDevOps pipelines. Great documentation, easy to use..
For anyone interested in load / stress testing, I’ve been using @k6_io recently and has been an absolute pleasure. Script up your flow using JS and away you go. Load tests in source control FTW. API for build sever runs too, beautiful.
Want to work with us?
k6 is on a mission to democratize load testing, and we're always looking for great people.