Grafana k6 vs Sampler Dashboard

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureGrafana k6Sampler Dashboard
CategoryMonitoring & StatusDashboards & Startpages
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, bare-metalbare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 31,211★ 14,727
First released20172019
ReplacesLoadRunner, BlazeMeterGrafana

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana k6 if…

  • Developer-friendly scripting
  • Great CI integration
Grafana k6 details

Choose Sampler Dashboard if…

  • Runs in a terminal
  • No web stack needed
Sampler Dashboard details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana k6 or Sampler Dashboard better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana k6 has the larger community, while Sampler Dashboard is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Grafana k6 and Sampler Dashboard free and open-source?

Yes. Grafana k6 is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sampler Dashboard under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Grafana k6 and Sampler Dashboard with Docker?

Grafana k6: yes. Sampler Dashboard: check the project docs for container support.

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