Grafana k6 Cloud

Managed load testing platform built on top of open-source k6. Run tests from geo-distributed cloud load zones, stream results live into Grafana dashboards, track trends over time, and integrate with the full Grafana observability stack — no infrastructure to manage.

What is Grafana k6 Cloud?

Grafana k6 Cloud is the managed SaaS platform for k6, the open-source load testing tool. While open-source k6 runs tests locally or in a single CI machine, k6 Cloud executes those same JavaScript/TypeScript scripts from Grafana's globally distributed cloud infrastructure — no servers to provision, no bandwidth limits to worry about.

k6 Cloud adds real-time metric streaming into Grafana dashboards, persistent test result history for trend analysis, team collaboration features, and native integration with the Grafana observability stack (Loki, Tempo, Prometheus). Your existing k6 scripts run unchanged — you simply point them at the cloud with k6 cloud run.

Key Features

• Cloud execution — run tests from Grafana's managed infrastructure; no local machine required for load generation
• Geo-distributed load zones — US, EU, Asia Pacific, South America regions with per-zone percentage weights
• Real-time metrics — stream p50/p95/p99 response times, error rates, and VU counts live into Grafana
• Result history & trends — compare runs over time to detect regressions before they reach production
• Native Grafana integration — link with Loki (logs), Tempo (traces), and Prometheus to correlate load test results with application observability
• Team collaboration — shared projects, access control, and annotations on test runs
• CI/CD gates — same threshold-based pass/fail as open-source k6; non-zero exit code on breach
• Free tier — 50 VUh/month; suitable for smoke tests and short load checks
• Scheduling — schedule tests to run automatically on a recurring basis (paid plans)

Getting Started

Install k6 locally, authenticate with your Grafana Cloud API token, then run your script with k6 cloud run. k6 uploads the script to Grafana's infrastructure and streams results back to your terminal and the cloud dashboard in real time.

# 1. Install k6 locally (required to run cloud tests)
brew install k6          # macOS
choco install k6         # Windows
# or: docker pull grafana/k6

# 2. Authenticate with Grafana k6 Cloud
k6 cloud login --token 

# Or use environment variable (recommended for CI)
export K6_CLOUD_TOKEN=

# 3. Run a test on Grafana k6 Cloud (from local script)
k6 cloud run script.js

# 4. Run with a specific load zone
k6 cloud run --zones amazon:us:us-east-1 script.js

# 5. Check status / stream results
k6 cloud run --show-logs script.js

Cloud Script with Geo-Distribution

Add an ext.loadimpact block to your options to configure cloud-specific settings: project name, load zone distribution, and percentage weights per region.

// script.js — k6 script with cloud-specific options
import http from 'k6/http';
import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  // Cloud execution config
  ext: {
    loadimpact: {
      projectID: 3478234,
      name:      'API Baseline — v2.1.0',
      // Geo-distributed load zones with weight
      distribution: {
        'amazon:us:us-east-1':      { loadZone: 'amazon:us:us-east-1',      percent: 50 },
        'amazon:eu:eu-west-1':      { loadZone: 'amazon:eu:eu-west-1',      percent: 30 },
        'amazon:ap:ap-southeast-1': { loadZone: 'amazon:ap:ap-southeast-1', percent: 20 },
      },
    },
  },

  stages: [
    { duration: '2m',  target: 100 },  // ramp up
    { duration: '5m',  target: 100 },  // steady state
    { duration: '2m',  target: 200 },  // spike
    { duration: '1m',  target: 0   },  // ramp down
  ],

  thresholds: {
    http_req_duration: ['p(95)<600', 'p(99)<1500'],
    http_req_failed:   ['rate<0.005'],
  },
};

export default function () {
  const res = http.get('https://api.example.com/v2/products');

  check(res, {
    'status 200':      (r) => r.status === 200,
    'response < 1s':   (r) => r.timings.duration < 1000,
  });

  sleep(1);
}

CI/CD Integration

Use the official grafana/k6-action for GitHub Actions with cloud: true. Store your API token as a repository secret (K6_CLOUD_TOKEN). The action fails the job automatically when thresholds are breached.

# GitHub Actions — run load test on Grafana k6 Cloud
name: Load Test (k6 Cloud)

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 2 * * *'   # nightly at 02:00 UTC

jobs:
  cloud_load_test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run k6 Cloud test
        uses: grafana/[email protected]
        with:
          filename: tests/load/api.js
          cloud: true
          token: ${{ secrets.K6_CLOUD_TOKEN }}

      # Alternative: install k6 and run directly
      - name: Install k6
        run: |
          curl https://github.com/grafana/k6/releases/download/v0.51.0/k6-v0.51.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz -L | tar xvz
          sudo cp k6-v0.51.0-linux-amd64/k6 /usr/local/bin

      - name: Run cloud test
        run: k6 cloud run tests/load/api.js
        env:
          K6_CLOUD_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.K6_CLOUD_TOKEN }}

Self-Hosted Alternative: Grafana + InfluxDB

If you prefer to self-host, k6 can stream metrics to a local InfluxDB instance and display them in a self-managed Grafana dashboard. This gives you unlimited local runs at no cost, at the expense of managing infrastructure and losing geo-distribution.

# Stream k6 results to a self-hosted Grafana + InfluxDB stack
# (alternative to fully-managed k6 Cloud)

# Run k6 with InfluxDB output
k6 run --out influxdb=http://localhost:8086/k6 script.js

# Or stream to Prometheus remote write
k6 run --out experimental-prometheus-rw script.js

# docker-compose.yml — InfluxDB + Grafana for local dashboards
version: '3.8'
services:
  influxdb:
    image: influxdb:1.8
    ports: ["8086:8086"]
    environment:
      INFLUXDB_DB: k6

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    ports: ["3000:3000"]
    environment:
      GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ENABLED: "true"
      GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ORG_ROLE: Admin
    volumes:
      - ./grafana/provisioning:/etc/grafana/provisioning

Available Load Zones

k6 Cloud vs Competitors

Pros and Cons