📣 Update
For a fully managed performance testing solution, Grafana Cloud k6 is now available natively in Grafana Cloud, including a free forever plan that comes with up to 500 Virtual User Hours each month.
This is a proud day for all of us here at LoadImpact!
Today is the day we're unveiling the new k6 Cloud load testing service. A completely rebuilt frontend to our cloud service including some much requested improvements:
- Test builder: redesigned and now integrated with our browser recorder
- Results: improved test run comparison feature and per metric filtering on the result page
- Enterprise: SAML SSO
- and many smaller fixes and UX improvements
Today is also the day when we make public our plan to rebrand the company as "k6", the starting point for the transition away from the "LoadImpact" brand and loadimpact.com to the "k6" brand and k6.io.
It will be a gradual transition over the next few months, to avoid making too much of a disruptive change for our existing customers. See further down for the timeline of how this transition will happen.
Motivation
The primary motivation behind this rebranding is the fantastic adoption and growth we've seen in the open source k6 load testing tool.
Sitting here writing this, it's almost hard to believe it's been 5 years already since we started the "Speedboat" research project (a name inspired by a LinkedIn connection request from an employee at a competitor). A project that eventually turned into k6.
We set out to build not only a new load testing tool (the fourth such tool we've built to date but who's counting), but an open source load testing tool for developers. At that time a relatively small and, in our opinion, underserved market, but one that we thought destined to grow given the market trends. We believed there was room for another load testing tool.
Moving forward we'll continue referring to the tool as "k6" or "k6 OSS" if a distinction is necessary and not inferrable by context. The cloud service will be referred to as "k6 Cloud" (like the command to run tests in our cloud service! 😊) or "k6 Cloud Service". This brings us to the second motivation for this rebranding, which is the confusion we've heard from users and customers in regards to the relationship between k6 and Load Impact.
Our ambition is to create the best developer experience for load testing, and this rebranding and repositioning is doubling down on that path.
What does it mean for existing customers and users?
This launch is mostly cosmetic. It's a new web app (aka frontend) with new colors at a new home address, but otherwise it's mostly the same. On the backend side it's the same cloud system as in LoadImpact v4.0.
All accounts and account data, including test scripts and test results, from Load Impact v4.0 will transparently work across app.loadimpact.com and app.k6.io for a transition period of 90 days, see timeline details below.
After 90 days app.loadimpact.com will still be available but with limited v4.0 access and closed down for new registration: Access to v3.0 will remain available until December 31st, 2020 when we'll sunset the app and the cord is pulled on that infrastructure. Access to what we've up until now called v4.0 will only be accessible via app.k6.io.
Timeline
There are three important dates to keep in mind during this transition.
| Date | What |
|---|---|
| Feb 24th, 2020 | Today, new cloud service released under k6 brand at k6.io. Access to accounts and data:
|
| Jun 1st, 2020 | Access to v4.0 projects will only be available from app.k6.io. |
| Dec 31st, 2020 | After 8 years of service, and two and a half years after the release of v4.0, we sunset v3.0, tearing down all infrastructure and deleting all data. Farewell! |
Summary
Changes can be tricky, but I hope at least a tiny bit of the excitement that we're feeling is getting across in this post 😄. I encourage you to reach out to us if you have any questions or feedback!
We have a good bunch of product improvements coming in 2020, thanks to great feedback from our customers and community members. Please continue sharing your ideas and feedback, and thanks for being a customer or user of our tool and service, we much appreciate it!
Where do I go if I need help
We are here to support you. Additionally, we have our new documentation (covering both k6 OSS and Cloud), community forum and slack channel where you can get more information:
Finally, you are always welcome to contact us directly at support@k6.io. We would be happy to set up a Q&A session or walkthrough to answer your questions after you have some time to explore the new k6 Cloud app on your own.