Performance Engineering for Node.js: Open-Source Insights with K6, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry

Modern Node.js applications need to be fast, scalable, and resilient—and performance engineering is the key. This session presents a practical, fully open-source stack for performance testing and observability using K6, Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry (with Jaeger or Tempo). Attendees will learn how to simulate realistic load on APIs, monitor Node.js internals like event loop delays and memory usage, and trace bottlenecks across services using distributed tracing. We'll also explore how to integrate these tools into your CI/CD pipelines for automated performance validation. Expect live demos, actionable patterns, and a blueprint you can implement without relying on expensive APMs.

1] Set up K6 load tests tailored for real-world scenarios

2] Instrument Node.js services using Prometheus + Grafana

3] Implement distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry and Jaeger

4] Identify event loop delays, memory leaks, and slow endpoints

5] Build an end-to-end performance pipeline using only open-source tools