How is xK6 browser different from Chrome's Lighthouse

Grafana k6 k6-browser
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There is not much literature out there that clarifies how and how much xK6 browser is different from Lighthouse. Please shed some light on this tpoic

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Hi @aakash.gupta,

Thank you for asking this question! Here are some of the differences that I can think of:

  • xk6-browser measures the browser performance metric only, whereas lighthouse also measures other areas such as accessibility, SEO, and progressive web app.
  • The browser performance metrics are also slightly different (Lighthouse uses the core web vitals), but xk6-browser also aims to have this consistency in the future
  • Lighthouse uses lab data, meaning the test is run using a controlled environment, whereas xk6-browser uses web performance APIs which means that it’ll use real data from users.
  • Lighthouse can be run via Chrome developer tools, browser extension, and the CLI version. Currently, xk6-browser can be run via the CLI and integrated with k6.
  • If you want a hybrid performance testing, you would need to use Lighthouse simultaneously with protocol-level load testing tools. k6 and xk6-browser is currently the single tool out there that lets you create a unified script for both backend and frontend performance testing.

In the future, we will create an article explaining the key differences between the two but for now, hopefully the above answer is sufficient :slight_smile:

Thank you!

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xK6 Browser provides real-time performance metrics and insights as you browse, allowing you to analyze the performance of web pages as you interact with them. In contrast, Chrome’s Lighthouse typically requires you to load a specific web page and then run the performance audit within the Developer Tools, providing a snapshot of performance at that moment.

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