# Get started > Load testing

# Load testing

## Overview

Artillery is a modern load testing platform built for continuous load testing at scale. Engineering teams use Artillery to test and optimize their applications to stay performant under high load.

Test everything from APIs to full browser experiences using the same TypeScript/JavaScript skills your team already has -- then scale instantly to production-level load without managing any infrastructure.

## Getting started

1. [Set up the Artillery CLI](/docs/get-started/get-artillery)
2. [Run your first test](/docs/get-started/first-test) to get an idea for how Artillery works
3. Check out [example scripts and projects](/docs/get-started/examples) for a variety of common tasks and types of applications, e.g. web app load testing with Playwright, or load testing an HTTP API, or another protocol such as [SOAP](https://github.com/artilleryio/artillery/tree/main/examples/soap-with-custom-function)
4. Learn about [running load tests with Playwright](/docs/playwright) and reusing existing functional tests for load testing
5. Learn about modeling realistic traffic patterns with [arrivals and ramps](/docs/reference/test-script#phases---load-phases), and Artillery's [hybrid open / closed loop](https://www.artillery.io/blog/load-testing-workload-models) model
6. [Set up distributed load testing](/docs/load-testing-at-scale) on AWS or Azure
7. Set up an integration with your [CI/CD](/docs/cicd) pipeline, and [monitoring/observability platform](/docs/observability)