wrk

High volumes of HTTP requests are the focus of wrk, an open-source command-line tool for benchmarking web servers. It uses multiple threads and connections to place a chosen endpoint under load, reporting information such as throughput and request latency. This helps developers and system administrators examine how a service responds as concurrent request activity increases. Lua scripting allows request behavior to be customized, but wrk does not reproduce a complete browser session or automatically create realistic human traffic.

It does not render pages or run their client-side JavaScript. That distinction makes it suited to focused server and HTTP endpoint testing rather than measuring the full experience of loading a website. Its appeal lies in a compact workflow for generating substantial request pressure, with meaningful results depending on the test design and the capacity of the machine generating the load.