# Artillery **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/artillery-io **Vertical:** Software Testing **Subcategory:** Modern Load & Smoke Testing **Tier:** Growth **Website:** artillery.io **Last Updated:** 2026-04-14 ## Summary Artillery is a modern open-source load testing and smoke testing tool built for cloud-native architectures, supporting HTTP, WebSockets, and custom protocols. ## Company Overview Artillery is a modern open-source load testing and smoke testing framework designed for cloud-native application architectures, offering a YAML-first test definition syntax that makes performance tests readable and maintainable alongside application code. Artillery was built with the philosophy that load testing configuration should be version-controlled, code-reviewed, and treated as a first-class artifact of the software development process rather than a one-off script someone runs before a big launch. Its YAML scenario definitions express traffic patterns, virtual user flows, request sequences, and ramp-up profiles in a format that is readable by engineers who did not write the test, making load test maintenance a team responsibility rather than tribal knowledge held by a single performance specialist. The framework supports HTTP/HTTPS, WebSockets, Socket.io, gRPC, and Kinesis out of the box, with a plugin architecture that allows extension to custom protocols and proprietary interfaces. Artillery Pro and Artillery Cloud extend the open-source core with distributed execution for large-scale tests, real-time dashboards, historical result storage, and CI/CD integration that gates deployments based on performance thresholds. The smoke testing capability repurposes the same scenario definitions used for load testing as lightweight production health checks that verify critical user flows are working correctly after deployment — sharing the test definition format across load testing and smoke testing reduces the number of separate scripts teams need to maintain. Artillery is headquartered in London and has built a strong open-source user community among cloud-native engineering teams working with Node.js, microservices, and serverless architectures. The framework's lightweight architecture and JavaScript extensibility make it particularly popular in the Node.js ecosystem where JMeter's Java toolchain is an awkward fit. Artillery competes with k6, Locust, and Gatling in the open-source load testing space, differentiating through its YAML-first design philosophy that prioritizes test readability and its support for non-HTTP protocols that matter in event-driven and real-time application architectures. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What makes Artillery better suited for microservices architectures than traditional load testing tools? Artillery's YAML scenario model handles complex multi-step flows and multiple protocol types — HTTP, WebSockets, gRPC — in a single test definition, and its lightweight Node.js runtime fits naturally into JavaScript-based microservices stacks, whereas tools like JMeter are designed around monolithic HTTP application patterns and require a Java toolchain that many cloud-native teams do not use. ### What is Artillery used for? Artillery is an open-source load testing and smoke testing tool used to verify that APIs, web services, and WebSocket-based applications can handle expected traffic volumes, with the ability to run large-scale performance tests in CI/CD pipelines or on-demand from developer workstations. ### What protocols does Artillery support? Artillery supports HTTP/HTTPS for REST APIs and web applications, WebSockets for real-time applications, Socket.io, gRPC, and custom protocols through plugins — covering the main server-side protocols used in modern cloud-native applications. ### How do you write Artillery test scripts? Artillery test scripts are written in YAML for scenario configuration — defining HTTP request flows, response checks, and think times — with support for JavaScript functions for dynamic data generation, custom logic, and complex test scenarios that YAML alone cannot express. ### What is Artillery Cloud? Artillery Cloud is the managed cloud service that runs Artillery load tests from distributed infrastructure across multiple regions, provides test result storage and visualization, enables team collaboration on test configurations, and integrates with CI/CD pipelines for automated performance testing. ### How does Artillery integrate with CI/CD pipelines? Artillery runs from the command line and exits with a non-zero code when test thresholds are violated, making it straightforward to add to CI/CD pipelines — a test stage that runs Artillery and fails the build when p95 response time exceeds a threshold provides automated performance regression detection on every deployment. ### Where does Artillery fit in the testing ecosystem alongside k6 and Gatling? Artillery is particularly strong for teams that prefer YAML-based test configuration and want native WebSocket and real-time protocol support, while k6 favors JavaScript-native scripting and Gatling uses Scala/Java. All three are modern alternatives to legacy JMeter, with Artillery emphasizing developer experience and CI/CD integration. ### Where is Artillery maintained? Artillery is open source and was created by Hassy Veldstra. Artillery.io maintains the open-source project and the commercial Artillery Cloud service, with the community contributing plugins and integrations for various protocols and services. ## Tags open-source, developer-tools, saas, b2b, cloud-native, automation, platform, startup, europe --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*