Install tsung with Homebrew, apk, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, apt, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• tsplot
• tsung
• tsung-recorder

Project history

Tsung began in 2001 when Nicolas Niclausse started IDX-Tsunami at IDEALX as an internal distributed Jabber load-stress tool. The project became an open-source multi-protocol load-testing tool within months, added HTTP support in 2003, and later moved to GitHub under processone.

The project's architecture reflects its Erlang roots: it uses lightweight processes and distributed Erlang to generate high concurrency from a single machine or a cluster. The manual ties this design to Erlang/OTP's performance, scalability, and fault-tolerance characteristics.

Release history shows a long-lived specialist tool rather than a short-lived benchmark script. The changelog documents protocol and reporting expansion across the 1.x line, including MQTT support in 1.5.0, WebSocket and WSS work in later releases, 1.7.0 in 2017, and 1.8.0 in 2023.

Adoption history

Tsung's own manual records industrial and research use, including large Jabber/XMPP and HTTP/HTTPS tests, French public-sector and enterprise users, and very high-concurrency benchmark examples on clusters and EC2.

In package-manager culture, Tsung became the kind of tool installed when a simple request loop was not enough. The supplied package facts list it in Homebrew, Alpine, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Ubuntu, and openSUSE package sets, which matches its role as a Unix-friendly load generator.

GitHub metadata also indicates durable open-source attention: the upstream repository was created on GitHub in 2010, uses the develop branch as default, and remains active with thousands of stars and hundreds of forks as of the 2026 API response checked for this batch.

How it is used

Typical Tsung use is scenario-driven: users write XML configurations, run distributed client nodes, and generate reports on response time, connection time, requests per second, errors, and target-server monitoring.

The official recorder is part of its practical appeal. `tsung-recorder` can capture HTTP, WebDAV, and PostgreSQL sessions into XML under `~/.tsung/`, letting operators turn browser or database traffic into reusable benchmark scenarios.

Why package nerds care

Tsung matters to package nerds because it packages a full distributed benchmark harness behind a small set of command-line tools: `tsung`, `tsung-recorder`, and `tsplot`. It is a classic example of an Erlang systems tool that is installed from a package manager and then wired into local XML, shell, and graphing workflows.

Its niche overlaps several package ecosystems: web benchmarking, XMPP server testing, database protocol load generation, and Erlang runtime packaging. That makes dependency availability and sane default paths more important than polished desktop UX.

Timeline

• 2001: Development starts as IDX-Tsunami for internal Jabber load testing at IDEALX.
• 2003: HTTP support is added, broadening the project beyond Jabber/XMPP.
• 2010: The processone/tsung GitHub repository is created.
• 2013: Tsung 1.5.0 adds MQTT support according to the changelog.
• 2017: Tsung 1.7.0 is released with major fixes and protocol enhancements.
• 2023: Tsung 1.8.0 is released with WebSocket, MQTT, reporting, and documentation fixes.

Related projects

• The manual compares Tsung with simple injectors such as ApacheBench for one-URL loops, while positioning Tsung for complex scenarios and extended reports.
• The background section links Tsung's traffic model to the earlier INRIA WAGON web-traffic generator prototype.

Sources

• http://tsung.erlang-projects.org/user_manual/features.html documents supported protocols, XML scenarios, recorder support, and reporting features.
• http://tsung.erlang-projects.org/user_manual/introduction.html documents the IDX-Tsunami origin, 2001 start, 2003 HTTP support, Erlang design, and adoption examples.
• http://tsung.erlang-projects.org/user_manual/proxy.html documents `tsung-recorder` behavior and output paths.
• https://github.com/processone/tsung README and CHANGELOG.md document the supported protocol list and release history.
• source_facts.package-manager lists package-manager availability across Homebrew, Alpine, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Ubuntu, and openSUSE.