Artillery Load Testing: Complete Guide to Performance Testing with Playwright

In today’s fast‑moving digital landscape, application performance is no longer a “nice to have.” Instead, it has become a core business requirement. Users expect applications to be fast, reliable, and consistent regardless of traffic spikes, geographic location, or device type. As a result, engineering teams must test not only whether an application works but also how it behaves under real‑world load. This is where Artillery Load Testing plays a critical role. Artillery helps teams simulate thousands of users hitting APIs or backend services, making it easier to identify bottlenecks before customers ever feel them. However, performance testing alone is not enough. You also need confidence that the frontend behaves correctly across browsers and devices. That’s why many modern teams pair Artillery with Playwright E2E testing.

By combining Artillery load testing, Playwright end‑to‑end testing, and Artillery Cloud, teams gain a unified testing ecosystem. This approach ensures that APIs remain fast under pressure, user journeys remain stable, and performance metrics such as Web Vitals are continuously monitored. In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to build a scalable testing strategy without breaking your existing workflow. We’ll walk through Artillery load testing fundamentals, Playwright E2E automation, and how Artillery Cloud ties everything together with real‑time reporting and collaboration.

What This Guide Covers

This article is structured to follow the same flow as the attached document, while adding clarity and real‑world context. Specifically, we will cover:

• Artillery load testing fundamentals
• How to create and run your first load test
• Artillery Cloud integration for load tests
• Running Artillery tests with an inline API key
• Best practices for reliable load testing
• Playwright E2E testing basics
• Integrating Playwright with Artillery Cloud
• Enabling Web Vitals tracking
• Building a unified workflow for UI and API testing

Part 1: Artillery Load Testing

What Is Artillery Load Testing?

Artillery is a modern, developer‑friendly tool designed for load and performance testing. Unlike legacy tools that require heavy configuration, Artillery uses simple YAML files and integrates naturally with the Node.js ecosystem. This makes it especially appealing to QA engineers, SDETs, and developers who want quick feedback without steep learning curves.

With artillery load testing, you can simulate realistic traffic patterns and validate how your backend systems behave under stress. More importantly, you can run these tests locally, in CI/CD pipelines, or at scale using Artillery Cloud.

Common Use Cases

Artillery load testing is well-suited for:

• Load and stress testing REST or GraphQL APIs
• Spike testing during sudden traffic surges
• Soak testing for long‑running stability checks
• Performance validation of microservices
• Serverless and cloud‑native workloads

Because Artillery is scriptable and extensible, teams can easily evolve their tests alongside the application.

Installing Artillery

Getting started with Artillery load testing is straightforward. You can install it globally or as a project dependency, depending on your workflow.

Global installation:

npm install -g artillery

Project‑level installation:

npm install artillery --save-dev

For most teams, a project‑level install works best, as it ensures consistent versions across environments.

Creating Your First Load Test

Once installed, creating an Artillery load test is refreshingly simple. Tests are defined using YAML, which makes them easy to read and maintain.

Example: test-load.yml

config:
  target: "https://api.example.com"
  phases:
    - duration: 60
      arrivalRate: 10
      name: "Baseline load"
scenarios:
  - name: "Get user details"
    flow:
      - get:
          url: "/users/1"

This test simulates 10 new users per second for one minute, all calling the same API endpoint. While simple, it already provides valuable insight into baseline performance.

Run the test:

artillery run test-load.yml

Beginner-Friendly Explanation

Think of Artillery like a virtual crowd generator. Instead of waiting for real users to hit your system, you create controlled traffic waves. This allows you to answer critical questions early, such as:

• How many users can the system handle?
• Where does latency start to increase?
• Which endpoints are the slowest under load?

Artillery Cloud Integration for Load Tests

While local test results are helpful, they quickly become hard to manage at scale. This is where Artillery Cloud becomes essential.

Artillery Cloud provides:

• Real‑time dashboards
• Historical trend analysis
• Team collaboration and sharing
• AI‑powered debugging insights
• Centralized performance data

By integrating Artillery load testing with Artillery Cloud, teams gain visibility that goes far beyond raw numbers.

Running Load Tests with Inline API Key (No Export Required)

Many teams prefer not to manage environment variables, especially in temporary or CI/CD environments. Fortunately, Artillery allows you to pass your API key directly in the command.

Run a load test with inline API key:

artillery run --key YOUR_API_KEY test-load.yml

As soon as the test finishes, results appear in Artillery Cloud automatically.

Manual Upload Option

artillery run --key YOUR_API_KEY test-load.yml --output out.json
artillery cloud:upload out.json --key YOUR_API_KEY

Auto‑Upload with Cloud Plugin

If your configuration includes:

plugins:
  cloud:
    enabled: true

Then, running the test automatically uploads results to Artillery Cloud—no extra steps required.

This flexibility makes Artillery load testing ideal for CI/CD pipelines and short‑lived test environments.

Load Testing Best Practices

To get the most value from Artillery load testing, follow these proven best practices:

• Start with small smoke tests before running a full load
• Use realistic traffic patterns and pacing
• Add think time to simulate real users
• Use CSV data for large datasets
• Track trends over time, not just single runs
• Integrate tests into CI/CD pipelines

By following these steps, you ensure your performance testing remains actionable and reliable.

Part 2: Playwright E2E Testing

Why Playwright?

Playwright is a modern end‑to‑end testing framework designed for speed, reliability, and cross‑browser coverage. Unlike older UI testing tools, Playwright includes auto‑waiting and built‑in debugging features, which dramatically reduce flaky tests.

Key Features

• Automatic waits for elements
• Parallel test execution
• Built‑in API testing support
• Mobile device emulation
• Screenshots, videos, and traces
• Cross‑browser testing (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit)

Installing Playwright

Getting started with Playwright is equally simple:

npm init playwright@latest

Run your tests using:

npx playwright test

Basic Playwright Test Example

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('validate homepage title', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://playwright.dev/');
  await expect(page).toHaveTitle(/Playwright/);
});

This test validates a basic user journey while remaining readable and maintainable.

Part 3: Playwright + Artillery Cloud Integration

Why Integrate Playwright with Artillery Cloud?

Artillery Cloud extends Playwright by adding centralized reporting, collaboration, and performance visibility. Instead of isolated test results, your team gets a shared source of truth.

Key benefits include:

• Live test reporting
• Central dashboard for UI tests
• AI‑assisted debugging
• Web Vitals tracking
• Shareable URLs
• GitHub PR comments

Installing the Artillery Playwright Reporter

npm install -D @artilleryio/playwright-reporter

Enabling the Reporter

export default defineConfig({
  reporter: [
    ['@artilleryio/playwright-reporter', { name: 'My Playwright Suite' }],
  ],
});

Running Playwright Tests with Inline API Key

Just like Artillery load testing, you can run Playwright tests without exporting environment variables:

ARTILLERY_CLOUD_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY npx playwright test

This approach works seamlessly in CI/CD pipelines.

Real‑Time Reporting and Web Vitals Tracking

When tests start, Artillery Cloud generates a live URL that updates in real time. Additionally, you can enable Web Vitals tracking such as LCP, CLS, FCP, TTFB, and INP by wrapping your tests with a helper function.

This ensures every page visit captures meaningful performance data.

Enabling Web Vitals Tracking (LCP, CLS, FCP, TTFB, INP)

Web performance is critical. With Artillery Cloud, you can track Core Web Vitals directly from Playwright tests.

Enable Performance Tracking

import { test as base } from '@playwright/test';
import { withPerformanceTracking } from '@artilleryio/playwright-reporter';

const test = withPerformanceTracking(base);

test('has title', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://playwright.dev/');
  await expect(page).toHaveTitle(/Playwright/);
});

Every page visit now automatically reports Web Vitals.

Unified Workflow: Artillery + Playwright + Cloud

By combining:

• Artillery load testing for backend performance
• Playwright for frontend validation
• Artillery Cloud for centralized insights

You create a complete testing ecosystem. This unified workflow improves visibility, encourages collaboration, and helps teams catch issues earlier.

Conclusion

Artillery load testing has become essential for teams building modern, high-traffic applications. However, performance testing alone is no longer enough. Today’s teams must validate backend scalability, frontend reliability, and real user experience, often within rapid release cycles. By combining Artillery load testing for APIs, Playwright E2E testing for user journeys, and Artillery Cloud for centralized insights, teams gain a complete, production-ready testing strategy. This unified approach helps catch performance bottlenecks early, prevent UI regressions, and track Web Vitals that directly impact user experience.

Just as importantly, this workflow fits seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines. With real-time dashboards and historical performance trends, teams can release faster with confidence, ensuring performance, functionality, and user experience scale together as the product grows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start validating API performance and UI reliability using Artillery Load Testing and Playwright today.

Start Load Testing Now