Stress test your websites, apps, APIs, and streaming workflows with a highly scalable platform designed for real-world traffic — before it hits. CloudTest pinpoints bottlenecks across code, networks, databases, and delivery paths, with real-time control and analytics you can act on immediately. Choose a fully managed service run by Akamai performance engineers or a self-service license you operate in-house.
Real-time control at production scale. Ramp traffic up or down mid-test, trigger promotions or outage scenarios, and observe impact instantly with in-memory analytics — even in production.
Global, realistic traffic mix. Launch tests from distributed cloud and carrier locations that mirror your user base and last-mile conditions.
Media- and commerce-ready scenarios. Emulate user journeys and player/device profiles, shift bandwidth dynamically, and validate checkout, login, APIs, and streaming KPIs under peak load.
CDN-independent, multi-vendor validation. Compare performance across multiple CDNs simultaneously and quantify origin offload and failover behavior.
One view of performance. Merge CloudTest analytics with your APM/observability tools in custom dashboards to isolate root causes quickly.
Managed or self-service. Lean on Akamai’s expert engineers for end-to-end planning, execution, and reporting — or build and run tests yourself with a no-code visual composer.
Customer proof:
“Akamai CloudTest has helped us to find the bottlenecks in our systems very quickly so that we can prepare ourselves effectively for the biggest shopping events of the season.”
— Leanne Clancy, Group CIO at Boohoo (PrettyLittleThing). Read more
How CloudTest works
Configure: Define parameters, variables, validations, and user journeys via a browser-based UI; reuse and combine tests without code.
Execute: Run production-volume tests from global locations; understand bottlenecks across environments, scripts, and systems at scale.
Control: Adjust loads live, simulate promotions and outages, and observe system behavior with real-time analytics.
Analyze: Use built-in dashboards and correlate with third-party monitoring data for deep performance analysis.
Key features
Visual test composition with drag-and-drop test cases, virtual user settings, geographic origins, repeats, ramp-ups, and pacing.
Real-time, single-pane dashboards with unlimited data point processing and integration with your monitoring stack.
Safe production testing with instant load adjustments and real-time observability.
Multi-CDN and multi-cloud execution for apples-to-apples comparisons across vendors and regions.
Expert-run On-Demand service or licensed self-service model.
CloudTest use cases
Validate readiness: Prove sites, apps, APIs, and workflows can handle both everyday and burst traffic; find and fix bottlenecks before launch.
Plan for traffic peaks: Simulate retail drops, sporting events, premieres, or promotions using thousands of cloud servers to mirror peak scenarios — and stabilize go-live.
Professional load testing: Short timelines or limited resources? Akamai’s engineers scope, script, run, and report enterprise-scale tests for you.
Media streaming and OTT testing
CloudTest can emulate different device and player profiles (e.g., Roku, Apple TV, JW Player, custom players), conduct dynamic bandwidth shifting, and script HLS, HDS, and CMAF segments to model real viewing conditions and concurrency.
What this enables:
- Validate adaptive bitrate behavior: Determine ideal chunk sizes and bitrate ladders for changing network conditions, reduce rebuffering, and tune frames per second for a smooth experience.
- Model real OTT audiences: Mix device/player profiles and geographies to reflect live event demand; test concurrency and session churn over time.
- Exercise the end-to-end workflow: App flows, tokening/auth, CDN edge, mid-tier caches, and origin — including multi-CDN comparisons and failover.
Define success: Startup time, rebuffer ratio, average/95th-percentile bitrate, error rates, edge hit ratio/origin offload, and session success.
Model the audience: Concurrency by region/device/player profile; ramp pattern (pre-show spike, halftime surges); session duration for soak.
Script the stream: HLS/HDS/CMAF manifests and segments, ad breaks, seek behavior, and login/entitlement flows as needed.
Exercise ABR: Use bandwidth shifting to force up/down bitrate transitions and measure rebuffering, quality shifts, and recovery.
Run phases:
Break/Fix: Quick iterations to remove functional issues and shallow bottlenecks.
Duration (soak): Multi-hour tests to surface leaks, cache churn, or rate-limit issues.
Peak: 2–3x expected load to validate safety margins and failover plans.
Observe and tune: Correlate CloudTest metrics with CDN, player analytics, and APM to localize hotspots; iterate on cache keys, chunk sizes, TTLs, and origin scaling.
CloudTest vs. BlazeMeter (at-a-glance)
Real-time control and analytics: CloudTest emphasizes in-test control (ramp up/down, scenario toggles) with in-memory, real-time dashboards to validate fixes immediately at scale.
Media and OTT focus: Built-in ability to emulate device/player profiles and conduct dynamic bandwidth shifting for ABR testing, plus HLS/HDS/CMAF scripting.
CDN and edge validation: CDN-agnostic testing with side-by-side multi-CDN comparisons and realistic last-mile distribution.
Operating model: CloudTest offers both a fully managed service by performance engineers for mission-critical events and a no-code self-service tool.
BlazeMeter is widely used for large-scale web and API testing with open-source script compatibility (e.g., JMeter/Gatling) and strong CI/CD integrations. Teams that need deep OTT/ABR emulation, real-time in-test control at production scale, and a managed option for major events often choose CloudTest; teams standardizing on open-source test scripts across developer workflows often choose BlazeMeter. Many organizations use both.
Best cloud-based platforms to consider
Akamai CloudTest
BlazeMeter
Grafana k6 Cloud
Tricentis Flood (Flood.io)
OpenText LoadRunner Cloud
Gatling Enterprise Cloud
Azure Load Testing
AWS Distributed Load Testing
Choose based on scale requirements, media/OTT needs, scripting preferences, CI/CD integration depth, real-time control/analytics, and whether you want a managed service for critical events.
Typical sequence and ramps with CloudTest
Break/Fix: Remove functional breaks and early bottlenecks at lower loads.
Duration: Run for hours to reveal issues like memory leaks and cache churn.
Peak: Push high sustained and bursty load to find the breaking points and queuing effects.
Example ramp guidance (tune to your audience):
- Start at 0, ramp to ~2,500 virtual users for 3–4 minutes.
- Ramp into tens of thousands for a representative period.
- Ramp to hundreds of thousands as needed; target 2–3x your anticipated peak for headroom.
FAQs
CloudTest On-Demand vs. CloudTest (licensed): On-Demand is a fully managed service run by Akamai engineers who scope journeys, execute tests at global scale, and deliver comprehensive reports. The licensed tool lets your team build and run realistic, code-free tests with global distribution and real-time analytics.
Multi-CDN testing: Yes. CloudTest is CDN-independent and can test multiple CDNs simultaneously with comparative results under load.
Virtual user distribution: CloudTest uses a highly distributed platform across carriers and cloud providers to mirror your geographic and network mix.
Virtual user realism: CloudTest creates virtual users on the same types of servers used during go-live to generate real HTTP requests and realistic system load.
Get started
Validate your plan with the CloudTest product brief.