Introduction

Your first test

Running your first load test with LoadForge is extremely easy. For most use cases the default load test will help you to understand how your site scales, and what breaks first.

Select a cloud option

You can either enter a DigitalOcean API key or choose to use our cloud. You can change this setting in the future, so if you don't have a DigitalOcean account yet we recommend using ours.

Eventually, you will want to change to your own account, as it's around $0.05 per test on your own and $2 on our cloud.

Adding a host

To prevent LoadForge being used to DoS other websites, you must add your Host and Verify that you own it. The process is quick and simple and there are three verification methods available: DNS, meta tag, or file upload.

Verification Tip

If you verify a parent host, like loadforge.com, you can automatically add any hosts underneath it like dev.loadforge.com and staging.test.loadforge.com.

Should you have any issues, you can also request a manual verification by contacting us.

Creating a test

You can now create a Test for your Host. We recommend using the default test file which will request the main page of your website.

Start small with 100 users and choose a location to test from and you can start your test right away!

Default test

You will see that you have a default test already populated, which will look like this:

from locust import HttpUser, task, between


class QuickstartUser(HttpUser):
    # Wait between 7 and 15 seconds per request per user
    wait_time = between(7, 15)


    @task(1)
    def index_page(self):
        # Request / on your Host
        self.client.get("/")

If you'd like to start with a more advanced test we recommend one of the following options:

  • Browse our test examples (in the side menu of this site)
  • Record your browser (.har) and upload it
  • Use the wizard to create a test

Running your test

You can now click Run next to your test and configure the length of the test. We recommend starting with a short one, like 5 minutes.

You'll see a live status of the test during the run, and once it completes you'll be given a full report and graphs on the performance of your site.

Let runs finish

Unless you've assassinated your app, we recommend letting runs finish. You will then get a proper report on the run. Cancelled runs do not give a full report.

Previous
Getting started