Artillery

Artillery is a Limerick, Ireland-based software company that provides an open-source, artificial intelligence-powered performance and reliability testing platform for production-quality systems. The organization operates on a freemium software-as-a-service business model, monetizing its core open-source framework through a commercial cloud tier that delivers advanced analytics, custom dashboards, and enterprise-grade integrations. Operating with a team of five employees, the platform facilitates high-scale load testing and browser-based end-to-end testing for many thousands of daily active users located worldwide. Artillery is backed by prominent venture capital investors including Y Combinator and Boldstart Ventures, having participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program. The platform's developer tools are utilized by site reliability engineers and quality assurance teams at major global technology companies such as Auth0, Evervault, and DAZN. The software company was originally founded in 2021 by Hassy Veldstra.

High-Level Overview

Artillery is a modern, AI-powered end-to-end (E2E) testing platform focused on production quality for software systems, particularly targeting DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams. It offers a comprehensive load testing solution that integrates large-scale load testing, Playwright-based browser testing, and production monitoring into a single platform. Artillery enables developers and SREs to run scalable, distributed load tests using serverless infrastructure on AWS and Azure, helping ensure applications and APIs remain performant and reliable under real-world traffic conditions. Its platform is designed for ease of use, scalability, and seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines and observability tools, serving thousands of developer teams globally to reduce performance risks and keep production systems stable[1][2][3].

For an investment firm perspective:
- Mission: To empower engineering teams to ship fast and reliable systems by providing a complete production quality platform.
- Investment philosophy: Focus on innovative SaaS and developer tools that enhance software reliability and operational efficiency.
- Key sectors: DevOps, SaaS, cloud-native infrastructure, developer tools, AI-powered testing.
- Impact on startup ecosystem: By enabling continuous performance validation and reducing operational risks, Artillery supports the growth of resilient software startups and promotes best practices in software reliability.

For a portfolio company perspective:
- Product: A full-stack performance and reliability testing platform combining load testing, E2E browser testing, and synthetic monitoring.
- Customers: Developer teams, DevOps engineers, and SREs in organizations needing scalable, production-grade testing solutions.
- Problem solved: Complexity and cost of traditional load testing tools, enabling continuous, scalable testing without infrastructure overhead.
- Growth momentum: Founded in 2021, Artillery has rapidly gained adoption with thousands of teams using its platform, supported by Y Combinator backing and $2M+ funding[1][2][3].

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Origin Story

Artillery was founded in 2021 by Hassy Veldstra, an SRE and open-source developer from Limerick, Ireland. Veldstra’s background in site reliability and open-source software shaped the vision to create a testing platform that helps engineering teams ship software faster while maintaining reliability and performance. The idea emerged from the challenges developers face with traditional load testing tools, which are often complex, expensive, and require heavy infrastructure management. Early traction came from the platform’s ease of use, serverless architecture, and integration with popular cloud providers, enabling distributed load testing at scale without operational overhead. Artillery was part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 batch and has since grown its team and product capabilities steadily[1][2].

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Core Differentiators

• AI-powered E2E testing: Uses AI-assisted analysis and summaries to accelerate debugging and test failure triage.
  - Serverless distributed load testing: Runs large-scale load tests on AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate, and Azure Container Instances, eliminating infrastructure management.
  - Playwright-native load testing: Reuses Playwright browser tests for load testing, enabling realistic browser-based performance validation.
  - Integration with CI/CD and observability: Supports OpenTelemetry and other monitoring tools for continuous testing and performance tracking.
  - Scalability: Supports scaling to millions of virtual users and requests with built-in cost reporting.
  - Developer experience: Simple CLI, easy automation, and extensibility with JavaScript plugins and custom reporters.
  - Community and ecosystem: Open-source roots with growing adoption among developer teams and SREs worldwide[1][2][3][5].

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Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Artillery rides the growing trend of continuous testing and DevOps automation, addressing the increasing complexity of modern cloud-native applications and microservices architectures. As organizations adopt serverless and containerized infrastructure, the need for scalable, cost-effective load testing solutions that integrate seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines becomes critical. Artillery’s cloud-native, serverless approach aligns with these market forces, enabling teams to validate performance continuously without heavy operational burdens. Its AI-powered analysis and Playwright integration position it at the intersection of automated testing, observability, and developer productivity, influencing best practices in software reliability and performance engineering[1][2][3][4].

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Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Artillery is poised to expand its synthetic monitoring capabilities and deepen AI integration to further automate test creation, execution, and failure diagnosis. As demand for resilient, high-performance applications grows, especially in cloud and serverless environments, Artillery’s platform is well-positioned to become a standard tool for DevOps and SRE teams. Trends such as AI-assisted testing, increased adoption of Playwright, and the shift toward continuous performance validation will shape its evolution. Its influence is likely to grow as it helps engineering teams reduce downtime, improve user experience, and accelerate delivery cycles, reinforcing its mission to keep users happy and pagers silent[1][3].