JMeter Throughput Shaping Timer vs standard timers for realistic ramp

Question

We are simulating a launch spike: 0 -> 2000 users over 5 min, hold 30 min, drop to 200. Constant/Uniform timers plus stepping thread group feels hacky. Is Throughput Shaping Timer the right call in 2026, or should we move this workload to k6?

Priya Gopal · Answer

We moved this exact workload to k6 last year - the DX for spikes is much better and results stream to Grafana natively. JMeter TST still works, but the config is finicky if anyone tweaks thread group defaults.

JMeter Throughput Shaping Timer vs standard timers for realistic ramp

1 answer