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Sauce Labs vs k6 Open Source comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

k6 Open Source
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Load Testing Tools (8th), Regression Testing Tools (10th)
Sauce Labs
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (13th), Test Automation Tools (19th)
 

Featured Reviews

NalinGoonawardana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good scalability and has the ability to integrate with various systems and services
One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter. While k6 is a powerful tool for performance testing, it leans heavily towards coding. Having a GUI, even if it is a low-code approach, could make it more accessible to a broader audience. It would be beneficial to strike a balance where basic tasks can be performed graphically through a user-friendly interface, while still allowing the flexibility for more complex operations through code, similar to how JMeter operates. This could enhance the user experience and make k6 more approachable for those who may not be as comfortable with scripting.
AnupKumar4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good stability and robust but lacks generative AI capabilities
Technical support is equally very important. If you talk about anything deployed to production, and the project is live, customers are using that, and they might face some issues, some functional issues. That's when support people play a role in identifying the fix or the incident. Based on that, we create an incident based on the customer defect or whatever. Once the incident gets raised, the support will play a role in working on that particular incident. If it's a code-based incident, administration, or integration issue, support people play a big role in resolving those issues before reaching the exact developers.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The standout feature of k6 is its strong focus on API performance testing."
"The tool's big advantage is that it is more performance-test oriented for experienced testers who know what they are doing. In a normal working setup, performance engineers frequently work with DevOps and development teams. For these teams, k6 Open Source's syntax is much simpler and easier to understand and apply in the working process."
"Sauce Labs is optimized for automation and integration with the major CI/CD platforms and developer tools. We have an integration with App Center that we're working on. They have a storage API that lets us retrieve APK and IPA, iOS and Android builds off the phone, so that we can continue testing with CI/CD. They integrate with Jenkins, and Jenkins is the main CI/CD."
"Sauce Labs helps us identify the root causes of bugs. The solution offers a lot of flexibility by providing the latest iOS and Android emulator versions, and even the Appium updates when it comes out in the market."
"It has a wide assortment of platforms."
"The error logging is also very robust. If we run a test through Sauce Labs and there's some sort of issue, a log will appear on the screen. Log messages are usually heinous and horrible... Sauce Labs is incredibly good at saying things like, 'Hey, here is the exact issue. Fix this and you can run the test.' That helps in getting things up and running and executing the way they should."
"The solution they provide is very robust. We can quickly connect to their environment with the hub URL. They have a URL that has the entire grid of desktops, web browsers, and mobile devices. They also provide real devices, so you just provide the URL and test your application."
"It offers the single best solution for integrating deep automated browser testing in a CI/CD pipeline."
"APPIUM for mobile testing has improved our organization by allowing us to test our website on more devices and browsers than we currently possess."
"I find that the multitude of browser and OS versions are very helpful for broadening testing scope."
 

Cons

"One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter."
"The ability to install profiles on iOS real mobile devices should be included."
"Lacks the ability to start multiple tests simultaneously."
"I can't remove team members that have left the organization. I can only set them as inactive. It would be really nice to clean up my data and delete them from the team management."
"We encountered minor issues with stability from time to time but Sauce Labs continues to make improvements."
"Latency, due to Sauce Labs being a cloud-based solution, has been a concern. We work in different continents and countries, but last time I checked, Sauce Labs was only offering two data centers, one in the EU and another in the US. If you're not in either of those two places, you would have latency and issues running your test cases."
"We have faced challenges with the availability of mobile devices. There was once or twice where there were no mobile devices available."
"Start execution time as each time a set of tests start, it will launch a new VM so it takes a bit of time."
"With the desktop browser, we can inspect any screen with the web developer option, but they should provide something for mobiles so that we can quickly inspect elements on the device. To write the Selenium scripts, we require web locators. We have to capture them from the local and execute the script on Sauce Labs. If Sauce Labs can provide a solution where we can inspect any of the mobile devices online, it will be very helpful for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Cost-wise, it's decent. If you have to get the base version out of it, it's the best solution to go with. As compared to other cloud service providers, the pricing of Sauce Labs is decent."
"Go ahead please. Try it at a smaller scale."
"With respect to pricing, they did a bundled discount because we went with Sauce Labs for both mobile and browser. They were very competitive on pricing and provided a bundle discount for us as a larger customer."
"They could improve on the pricing because it seems pretty expensive. I'm sure it's justified, but it's expensive."
"​Now that we have an enterprise license, we no longer have to worry about minutes each month!​"
"It could be less like pay-per-use with a lower rate."
"When you reach the Enterprise licensing tier, base level being with 10 concurrent test sessions, pricing is essentially per-unit-of-concurrency thereafter with a relatively linear increase and not much benefit for "bulk"."
"It is an expensive tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Media Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about k6 Open Source?
The standout feature of k6 is its strong focus on API performance testing.
What needs improvement with k6 Open Source?
One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter. While k6 is a powerful tool for performance testing, it leans heavily towards coding. Having a GUI, even if it is a low-co...
What is your primary use case for k6 Open Source?
k6 Open Source is a powerful tool, especially for API-level performance testing. Its integration capabilities and ease of use make it promising for a wider audience.
What do you like most about Sauce Labs?
It has significantly enhanced our testing accuracy by approximately 50%.
What needs improvement with Sauce Labs?
Sauce Labs can include new technologies like generative AI, which can reduce the human effort in writing test cases. For example, in my current project, we reduced the time it took to complete user...
What is your primary use case for Sauce Labs?
I work as an automation engineer using Selenium WebDriver with Java, and API automation using Rest Assured with Java. I have also worked with Docker integration on AWS. Additionally, I have experie...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Load Impact
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

rackspace, salesforce.com, IBM, servicenow, Nasdaq, JWT
Salesforce.com, Mozilla, Zendesk, Puppet Labs, Twitter, Bank of America, Eventbrite, Bleacher Report, Okta, Intuit, Travelocity, Sharecare, CapitalOne.
Find out what your peers are saying about Sauce Labs vs. k6 Open Source and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.