What is RedLine13?
RedLine13 launched in 2015 with a clever pitch: instead of marking up cloud compute, plug into your own AWS account and bill you only for orchestration. You hand them an IAM role, they spin up EC2 generators, your AWS bill picks up the rest. The supported tooling list is broad. JMeter, Gatling, Selenium, plus a slot for Locust or k6 if you bring the script. Where this falls down in practice is everything around it. You're now in charge of quota requests, IAM cleanup, EC2 spot-instance configs, and an interface that hasn't seen much UX love in years. For most small and mid teams we've talked to, the AWS savings get eaten by the management overhead within a quarter.
When RedLine13 still makes sense
- Your AWS bill is already consolidated and finance wants every dollar of compute on it.
- You have a strict requirement to run load tests from a specific VPC, peered network, or AWS region your security team has locked down.
- Someone on your DevOps team enjoys configuring spot instances and managing quotas, and you're staffed for that work.
Where the model breaks down
The honest version: BYO-AWS sounds cheaper until you actually run it. Three pain points come up repeatedly when teams reach out to us about leaving RedLine13:
- Credentials and cleanup. You hand RedLine13 IAM keys to spin up EC2 generators. When a test fails halfway, you're the one cleaning up orphaned instances. Quota requests for new regions land in your support backlog, not theirs.
- It's load-testing only. No synthetic API monitoring. No Core Web Vitals. No scheduled Lighthouse audits. Want any of that? You buy a second vendor.
- The interface shows its age. Functional, but you can tell the design language is 2017. Comparison tools have moved on, and so have your team's expectations.
LoadFocus vs. RedLine13, side-by-side
| Feature | LoadFocus | RedLine13 |
|---|---|---|
| JMeter cloud execution | Yes, .jmx files run unchanged | Yes |
| k6 cloud execution | Yes, .js scripts | Yes (custom-script route) |
| Gatling support | No, most migrate to k6 | Yes |
| Infrastructure model | Hosted SaaS | BYO-AWS (your EC2) |
| Synthetic API monitoring | Yes, included | Not offered |
| Core Web Vitals + Lighthouse | Full Lighthouse runs | Not offered |
| Pricing model | Flat SaaS | Per-test orchestration fee plus your AWS bill |
| Entry tier | From $19/month | Orchestration fees plus AWS compute |
| Time to first run | Minutes | Hours (IAM setup plus quota approvals) |
When LoadFocus is the better pick
- You want load testing without giving any vendor IAM credentials to your AWS account.
- You'd rather see one bill for load testing, synthetic monitoring, and Core Web Vitals than three.
- The idea of spending an afternoon getting EC2 quotas approved before your first real test is unappealing.
- Your finance team prefers fixed-cost SaaS subscriptions over variable AWS line-items that fluctuate test by test.
- You're a small or mid team where the BYO-AWS savings don't pay for the engineering hours.
Migrating from RedLine13
Roughly the order we walk teams through:
- List your current tests by tool. JMeter, Gatling, Selenium, custom scripts. Most teams find this is mostly JMeter plus a handful of bespoke scripts.
- For JMeter (.jmx) tests, upload them to LoadFocus as-is. We run upstream Apache JMeter, so there's no rewriting.
- For k6 or Locust scripts, convert any Locust to k6 first. k6 runs natively on LoadFocus.
- For Gatling tests, rewrite as k6 .js. Conceptually they're the closest match, both are code-first, async load testers, and most teams report this is the smoothest path forward.
- Once your tests are passing on LoadFocus, revoke the IAM role you handed to RedLine13. That's the cleanup step people forget; do it intentionally.
FAQ: LoadFocus vs RedLine13
Does LoadFocus run tests inside my AWS account, like RedLine13?
No. LoadFocus is fully hosted. We operate the load generators in our own cloud, so there are no IAM credentials to share and no EC2 quotas for you to manage. The trade-off is real: you can't run from your own VPC. For testing public endpoints, which is what most teams need, this isn't a problem in practice.
Is LoadFocus cheaper than RedLine13?
It depends on scale. At the very high end, where you're saturating spot-instance pricing, RedLine13's BYO-AWS model can come out ahead on raw compute. For everything below that, our flat $19/month tier and up tends to beat orchestration fees plus AWS line items, once you factor in the engineering time you stop spending on quota tickets.
Can my existing RedLine13 JMeter scripts run on LoadFocus?
Yes. Both services use upstream Apache JMeter, so .jmx files transfer as-is. The migration is essentially a copy-paste.
What about Gatling?
RedLine13 supports Gatling natively; LoadFocus does not. We've watched a lot of Gatling users migrate to k6 cleanly, both are code-first, async-IO load testers, and the mental model carries across without much pain.
Can I target a specific AWS region?
LoadFocus runs load generators from 20+ regions covering the major AWS geographies. You don't get the same control as BYO-AWS, you can't run from your specific VPC, but for testing public-facing endpoints, region coverage is comparable.
Can I get synthetic monitoring and load testing on one bill?
Yes. Synthetic API and uptime checks, scheduled Lighthouse audits, plus JMeter and k6 load testing all live in the same LoadFocus account. RedLine13 is load-testing-only, so consolidating means picking up at least one more vendor.
Get started with LoadFocus
Sign up for free and upload your first JMeter .jmx or k6 .js. No IAM keys to provision, no quota tickets to file.
