HTTP Live Streaming Load Testing

Stress test your HLS streams with realistic traffic bursts and ensure your video platform scales smoothly.

Launch free test Book a demo

Trusted by the world’s most innovative teams

Aspyr NBA Kumon Carta Laravel

About HLS

What is HTTP Live Streaming?

HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is Apple's adaptive bitrate streaming protocol used by modern video platforms like JWPlayer and Cloudflare Stream. Viewers receive a master m3u8 playlist that references variant playlists and individual media segments.

HLS allows dynamic switching of video quality so that users experience uninterrupted playback on any network. Each variant playlist contains small chunks of video, typically a few seconds long.

Load Testing HLS

Validate your streaming scale

Large audiences can quickly overwhelm your CDN. LoadForge fetches playlists and segments just like real players so you can confirm caching rules and network capacity before launch.

Massive Scale
Generate up to 40Gbps of traffic and millions of virtual viewers hitting your HLS endpoints.
Segment by Segment
Each test downloads the full playlist and all video segments to mimic a real playback session.
Realistic Timing
Optionally pause for the duration of each segment to replicate actual viewing behavior.

LoadForge Capabilities

Built for high-bandwidth streaming

Our infrastructure scales horizontally across multiple data centers, allowing you to stress services like JWPlayer, CloudFront, or your own custom stack.

Global Regions
Launch traffic from locations worldwide to test CDN routing and latency.
Detailed Reporting
Understand concurrency, throughput, and error rates at every point in your stream.
CI/CD Friendly
Run HLS tests automatically as part of your deployment pipelines using our API.

Example LoadForge Script

from locust import HttpUser, task, between
import m3u8

class StreamingUser(HttpUser):
    wait_time = between(0.5, 1.5)

    @task
    def stream_hls(self):
        # 1. Fetch master/variant playlist
        r = self.client.get("/path/to/playlist.m3u8", name="playlist.m3u8")
        playlist = m3u8.loads(r.text)

        # 2. Fetch each segment in the playlist
        for segment in playlist.segments:
            self.client.get(segment.uri, name="segment")
            # optional: wait roughly segment.duration to mimic real watch
            # time.sleep(segment.duration)

Trusted by the world’s most innovative teams

Aspyr NBA Kumon Carta Laravel

Incredible insights

Beautiful, powerful reports, with actionable metrics

LoadForge automatically analyzes your site, explaining errors, showing detailed graphs, and performance numbers per page. Easily and quickly understand your load testing results.

  • Graphs for requests, errors, rates, latency, P95, P99
  • HTTP error analysis and performance AI
  • Download CSV or PDF reports
  • Store and compare your tests
Run free test Watch reporting demo →
Screenshot