Gatling vs Locust
Gatling
gatling.ioLocust
locust.ioSide by side
| Figure | Gatling | Locust |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €89/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 1 |
| Spec score · Performance Testing Software | 8.3 (#8) | 7.7 (#23) |
| Spec score · Software Testing Tools | 8.4 (#9) | 7.9 (#15) |
| Spec score · Testing And Qa | 8.4 (#10) | 7.9 (#15) |
| Spec score · Load Testing Software | 8.3 (#5) | 7.6 (#10) |
| Integrations | Listed integrations include GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. | Optional OpenTelemetry support exports traces, metrics, and logs to compatible backends, including OTLP, Prometheus, Jaeger, and Tempo. |
| Purpose | Gatling is a load testing and performance engineering platform for simulating traffic and identifying performance bottlenecks. | Locust is an open-source performance and load testing tool for HTTP and other protocols. |
| Support | The pricing comparison lists Community support for Basic, Standard support with a three-business-day response time for Team, and Premium support with a one-business-day response time for Enterprise. | The project README directs support questions to Stack Overflow and discussion to Discord, while locust.io says Locust.cloud provides dedicated commercial support. |
| Test authoring | Tests can be created with code, a no-code generator, or Postman imports. | Users define test scenarios in regular Python code and can use regular Python libraries in their tests. |
Plans
Gatling
- Basic (monthly)€99 a month
- Team (monthly)€396 a month
- Basic (annual)€1,068 a year
- Team (annual)€4,272 a year
- Enterprise (annual)Priced on request
- Enterprise (monthly)Priced on request
In their own words
Gatling
Gatling is a load-testing and performance engineering platform for simulating traffic and finding performance bottlenecks. Tests can be written in code, generated with a no-code tool or imported from Postman. Scenarios support Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Scala and Kotlin. The load engine supports HTTP out of the box and JMS, and can be extended for other protocols. The listing includes API and stress testing, distributed load and hybrid deployment; browser-based testing is marked unsupported. Gatling Studio is a native application that runs locally on macOS, Windows and Linux. Enterprise Edition adds a web interface for managing and monitoring tests, live dashboards, CI/CD integration, advanced permissions and hybrid or cloud deployment. Listed integrations include GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Slack and Microsoft Teams. Gatling says it is SOC 2 Type II certified and encrypts traffic in transit and stored data at rest. A free plan is available. Basic (annual) is €89 a year, billed annually; Enterprise has a free 14-day trial without a credit card.
Locust
Locust is an open-source performance and load testing tool for HTTP and other protocols. Test scenarios are written in Python, with regular Python libraries available for use within them. Tests can run from the command line or web interface, which displays throughput, response times, and errors in real time; results can be exported for later analysis. The interface shows progress and lets users change load during a run. Locust can distribute tests across multiple machines and says it can support hundreds of thousands of concurrent users. Other systems and protocols can be tested by adding a client, and documentation lists community extensions for protocols and reporting. Optional OpenTelemetry support exports traces, metrics, and logs to compatible backends such as OTLP, Prometheus, Jaeger, and Tempo. Automatic instrumentation currently covers the requests library. Installation is documented with pip install locust or uvx. Locust is free and MIT-licensed. Its documentation also describes hosted load testing through Azure Load Testing, with reporting, Application Insights integration, and CI/CD support for Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions.