Nighthawk is a Layer 7 performance-characterisation and load-testing tool built on Envoy.
It generates HTTP traffic, records detailed latency statistics and supports automated or distributed benchmarking through command-line and gRPC interfaces.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Generates HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 traffic over HTTP or HTTPS.
- Controls request rate, concurrency, connection count, test duration and request body size.
- Supports open-loop and closed-loop traffic-generation modes.
- Records latency distributions and other performance statistics using high-dynamic-range histograms.
- Offers command-line and gRPC service interfaces for local and remote test execution.
- Provides static, file-based, in-memory, remote gRPC and LLM-oriented request sources.
- Includes a test server that can generate configurable responses and artificial delays.
- Exports results in human-readable, JSON, YAML, CSV, Prometheus and Fortio-compatible formats.
- Supports failure and termination predicates based on error counters and configurable thresholds.
- Can flush metrics to configured Envoy statistics sinks.
Website: envoyproxy/nighthawk
Support:
Developer: Envoy Project
License: Apache License 2.0
Nighthawk is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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