The Biggest Challenge of Load Testing Is Adoption: This Is Where Your ROI Comes From

When we created Gatling, one thing stood out: Most organizations weren’t doing load testing at all, even if they were struggling with massive performance issues.

And the few companies that did run load tests? They weren’t doing it frequently enough to generate real value.

So the question was clear:

?? Why wasn’t load testing more widely adopted?

The Barriers to Load Testing Adoption

When we looked at the landscape, we saw four major obstacles:

1?? Licenses were extremely expensive – Making it hard for anyone to convince their top management of an actual ROI.

2?? It required a lot of servers – Meaning lengthy approval processes and logistical headaches.

3?? It required specific skills – Only a few people knew how to run load tests, making them a bottleneck in their organization.

4?? It was done too late – Often as a last-minute step before release, meaning little time for optimization, and often seen as an adjustment variable.

Our first solution? Build a tool that removes these barriers:

? Deploy it anywhere

? Make it extremely powerful (10x fewer servers needed!)

? Let anyone who could code use it—no gatekeepers

A Developer-Driven Revolution

The impact was immediate in the developer community. Suddenly, engineers could bypass internal red tape and run load tests on their own.

We found ourselves in an interesting situation:

?? Some companies were massively using Gatling… without their decision-makers even knowing!

Over time, Gatling became a reference tool in many organizations. Some teams achieved incredible automation levels, running 5,000+ load tests per day!

But even with this success, adoption hit another barrier:

?? Gatling was built in Scala—a powerful but niche language. Many developers and testers hesitated to adopt it.

So, once again, we had to rethink our approach.

Expanding Adoption: More Languages, Less Complexity

If our goal was 100% adoption in an organization, we needed to:

?? Support multiple programming languages → We introduced Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, and TypeScript, making Gatling the first multi-language load testing solution.

?? Create a no-code experience → To allow anyone, without reading our documentation, to craft tests in minutes.

No-Code: Breaking Silos Without Creating New Ones

No-code and code are often seen as distinct options, but we didn’t want that. Our goal wasn’t to create two separate user bases—but to bring them together.

?? That’s why our no-code builder generates actual Gatling code.

• Everyone can start without going through our documentation.
• The most advanced Gatling users can tweak and refine in code.
• Teams can collaborate seamlessly, without silos.

This approach keeps Gatling useful from Day 1 while ensuring it scales with your maturity—from simple tests to complex, business-critical scenarios.

But we didn’t stop there.

Bridging the Gap: Functional Testing Meets Load Testing

One of the biggest pain points in software testing is duplication: For every kind of test (unit, functional, performance), teams need separate frameworks, often recreating the same scenarios multiple times.

? This wastes time.

? It increases maintenance costs.

? And it slows down teams.

Our Answer: Start with What Already Exists

Instead of reinventing the wheel, we asked:

?? How can we reuse existing functional tests for load testing?

We decided to integrate with one of the most popular API testing tools: Postman .

Now, you can reuse your #Postman collections as Gatling load testing scenarios—without extra setup. And just like with our no-code builder, you can transition from Postman to Gatling code anytime.

What’s Next: Crafting Complex Tests in Minutes

In 2025, we’re pushing even further:

?? More powerful no-code capabilities

?? Deeper #Postman integration

?? More ways to make load testing faster, easier, and more collaborative

But adoption isn’t just about features—it’s about community.

?? What’s missing for your team to expand adoption?

?? Join our open-source community and help shape the future of Gatling!

Because once adoption happens, the ROI comes naturally. ??

#LoadTesting #PerformanceTesting #DevOps #NoCode #OpenSource #Gatling