Zero-Dependency Monitoring

Every popular load testing tool requires a runtime. JMeter needs Java. k6 needs a binary + Node for scripting. Locust needs Python. Artillery needs Node. Even "lightweight" tools like wrk2 need C compilation and often Lua for configuration.

GoStress needs nothing. It's a single statically-linked binary. Copy it to any machine and run it.

Apache JMeter

~200 MB

+ JVM runtime (~300 MB)

~45 MB

Standalone binary

GoStress

~8 MB

Single binary, zero deps

What "Zero Dependencies" Actually Means

GoStress is written in Go and compiled to a native binary. This means:

No runtime installation — no JVM, no Node.js, no Python, no .NET
No package manager needed — no npm install, no pip install, no gem install
No compilation required — download and run
Cross-platform — same binary works on Linux, macOS, and Windows
No configuration files — everything is CLI flags

                # That's it. That's the entire setup.

                wget https://github.com/unnivm/gostress/releases/latest/download/gostress-linux-amd64

                chmod +x gostress-linux-amd64

                ./gostress-linux-amd64 --url https://your-api.com --formats html

Why This Matters in Practice

Other Tools

✗ Install Java 11+ for JMeter
✗ Install Node 18+ for k6 scripts
✗ Install Python 3.8+ for Locust
✗ Configure PATH variables
✗ Resolve dependency conflicts
✗ Run out of disk on CI runners

GoStress

✓ Download binary
✓ Run it
✓ That's it
✓ No PATH config needed
✓ No dependency conflicts
✓ ~8 MB total

CI/CD Made Simple

This is where zero dependencies really shine. In a CI/CD pipeline, every dependency is a potential point of failure:

Package registry downtime blocks your pipeline
Version conflicts between tools
Cached dependencies go stale
Docker images bloat with runtimes

With GoStress, your CI step is:

                # GitHub Actions example

                - name: Load Test

                  run:

                    wget -q https://github.com/unnivm/gostress/releases/latest/download/gostress-linux-amd64 -O gostress

                    chmod +x gostress

                    ./gostress --url ${{ secrets.API_URL }} --c 50 --d 30 --formats json

No setup-java action. No setup-node action. No caching. No version pinning. Just download and run.

The Web Dashboard

GoStress also includes a built-in web dashboard for viewing and sharing reports:

                ./gostress --serve-web --web-addr :8088 --dashboard-report report.json
            

This gives you a protected web UI (with username/password auth) that displays the same dark-themed HTML report. No nginx. No reverse proxy. No web server configuration. The Go standard library handles everything.

The philosophy: Load testing should be as easy as running a single command. No learning curves, no configuration files, no dependency management. Just point at a URL and get results.

Getting Started

                # macOS

                brew install unnivm/gostress/gostress

                # Linux / Windows — download from GitHub

                go install github.com/unnivm/gostress@latest

                # Or build from source

                git clone https://github.com/unnivm/gostress

                cd gostress && go build -o gostress .