Locust vs BlazeMeter

Free and open source

From $149 per month (indicative entry plan)

Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.

Priced by concurrent virtual users. Large enterprise tests are a substantial annual commitment.

Everything, self-hosted

Free tier with a small virtual-user cap and limited test duration.

Widely used

OSS community · since 2011

Widely used

Broadcom · since 2011

• Test scenarios are plain Python, so any logic is expressible without workarounds.
• Distributed mode is conceptually simple and works well on Kubernetes.
• Live web UI is useful during an exploratory ramp-up.

• Runs your existing open-source scripts unchanged — no migration cost.
• Global load generation from many regions without owning infrastructure.
• Reporting and trend analysis suited to handing results to management.

• Python's per-user overhead is higher than k6 or Gatling; big loads need more machines.
• Reporting is basic — plan on exporting to Grafana.
• HTTP-centric; other protocols require writing your own client.

• Expensive relative to running the same open-source scripts on your own machines.
• Virtual-user pricing makes frequent large tests costly.
• Adds a vendor to a workflow that can function entirely on open source.

Python teams who want load scenarios expressed in their own language.

Enterprises with existing JMeter estates that need scale and reporting without building it.