Locust Performance Testing with AI and Observability with Lars Holmberg
with Lars Holmberg
January 13, 2026 
Hosted by Joe Colantonio 
Key takeaways
What you'll learn in this episode
How Locust fits naturally into CI/CD and GitHub Actions
The real difference between load testing vs performance testing
How observability and end-to-end tracing eliminate guesswork
Common performance testing mistakes even experienced teams make
About this episode
Performance testing often fails for one simple reason: teams can’t see where the slowdown actually happens.
In this episode, we explore Locust load testing and why Python-based performance testing is becoming the go-to choice for modern DevOps, QA, and SRE teams. You’ll learn how Locust enables highly realistic user behavior, massive concurrency, and distributed load testing — without the overhead of traditional enterprise tools.
Why Python works so well for AI-assisted load testing
Whether you’re a software tester, automation engineer, or QA leader looking to shift-left performance testing, this conversation will help you design smarter tests and catch scalability issues before your users do.
CTO and 3x startup founder.
Maintainer of the Locust open source load testing tool.
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