WordPress / WooCommerce Admin CPU Benchmark (k6 + CSV)

Self-contained benchmark for running a realistic WooCommerce admin workflow with k6 and exporting results to CSV.

No Grafana, InfluxDB, or other observability stack is required.

Licensed under the MIT License.

Before running CPU comparisons, configure your site to emit X-PHP-Runtime-Ms (or the header name in .env). See README-TEST.md section "PHP runtime header setup" for setup and verification.

What it runs

Default flow (state-safe: only disposable benchmark entities are created or mutated):

Bundle	Steps	Notes
Auth	A1–A4	Login, dashboard, logout
Analytics	R1	WooCommerce admin home
Orders	O1–O4, O7	List, filter, optional search, create order, add note
Coupons	C1–C4	List, optional search, create/update disposable coupon
Customers	U1–U5	List, optional search, create/update disposable customer
Catalog	P1, P6	Product list + create draft; P3 search if configured; P4/P5 only if WP_ADMIN_PRODUCT_ID is set
Cleanup	X1–X4	Remove entities created in the run

Optional steps (env-driven): O3, O5 (fixture order), C2, U2, P3, P4, P5.

See README-TEST.md for the full step catalog and URL patterns.

Prerequisites

• Docker with Compose v2
• A WordPress + WooCommerce site reachable from the machine running Docker
• Your IP allowlisted if the host restricts admin access

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/pressidium/wordpress-cpu-benchmark.git
cd wordpress-cpu-benchmark
cp .env.example .env
make pull

Use your fork or mirror URL if you did not clone from the repository above.

Pull the pinned k6 image (grafana/k6:0.57.0 in docker-compose.yml) before the first run, and again after upgrading the pin.

Edit .env: set DOMAIN, WP_ADMIN_USER, WP_ADMIN_PASSWORD, and STACK_LABEL (for example a CPU / hosting tier label).

Single run:

make run-admin

Multiple full-flow iterations (2s pause between iterations by default):

make run-admin RUNS=10

CSV output:

results/<TEST_ID>.csv

If TEST_ID is unset, a timestamped id is generated automatically.

If results/<TEST_ID>.csv already exists, the script appends the current timestamp to the id (for example wp-admin-lon-2-shared-20260529-130000.csv) so previous results are not overwritten.

Do not commit .env or results/*.csv. Both are listed in .gitignore.

Analyzing results

Use php_runtime_ms per sampler (admin step name) for server-side PHP comparison. See README-TEST.md for tag semantics and pacing notes.

Do not use gaps between CSV timestamp values as request latency — timestamps are 1-second buckets and include fixed k6 pacing between steps (2s in dev mode).

Filter in a spreadsheet:

• metric_name == php_runtime_ms
• Group/compare by sampler and stack (from STACK_LABEL)

Site status brief (methodology)

scripts/collect-site-brief.sh runs on the WordPress server with WP-CLI. It is not executed through Docker Compose.

Copy the script to the server (or run it from a checkout there), then collect output:

# From your laptop
scp scripts/collect-site-brief.sh user@your-server:/tmp/
ssh user@your-server \
  'WP_PATH=/var/www/html bash /tmp/collect-site-brief.sh' \
  | tee site-brief-$(date +%Y%m%d).txt

# Or directly on the server, from the repository root
WP_PATH=/var/www/html ./scripts/collect-site-brief.sh | tee site-brief-$(date +%Y%m%d).txt

See usage in the header comment of scripts/collect-site-brief.sh.

Environment variables

See .env.example for a minimal template. URLs are built from DOMAIN only (TARGET_URL is not used).

Minimal required

Variable	Purpose
DOMAIN	Site hostname (no scheme), e.g. example.com
WP_ADMIN_USER	WordPress admin username
WP_ADMIN_PASSWORD	WordPress admin password

Recommended for reproducible comparisons

Variable	Default	Purpose
TEST_ID	auto	Run id (CSV filename + testid tag)
STACK_LABEL	unset	Label for stack variant, e.g. lon2-shared
K6_DEV_MODE	true	Single VU, sequential iterations
WP_ADMIN_RUN_ITERATIONS	1	Full admin-flow repetitions per run
WP_ADMIN_ITERATION_SLEEP_SEC	2	Pause between full iterations
WP_ADMIN_MAX_DURATION	auto	k6 scenario cap (e.g. 180m for 50 iterations)
WP_ADMIN_SLEEP_MIN / WP_ADMIN_SLEEP_MAX	0 / 0	Random per-step sleep when K6_DEV_MODE=false (code fallback: 5–10s if unset)
WP_ADMIN_FETCH_ASSETS	false	Skip static asset fetches
WP_ADMIN_PHP_RUNTIME_HEADER_ENABLED	true	Record php_runtime_ms from response header
WP_ADMIN_PHP_RUNTIME_HEADER_NAME	X-PHP-Runtime-Ms	Header name to parse

When K6_DEV_MODE=true, the script uses a fixed 2 second pause between admin steps (humanSleep()). WP_ADMIN_SLEEP_MIN / WP_ADMIN_SLEEP_MAX are ignored in that mode.

Long runs: with 50 iterations, allow roughly 130–180 minutes (WP_ADMIN_MAX_DURATION is auto-estimated if unset).

Optional behavior

Variable	Default	Purpose
WP_LOGIN_PATH	wp-login.php	Login path
WP_LOGIN_EXTRA_PARAM	aio_special_field	POST field name for hide-login plugins
WP_LOGIN_EXTRA_FIELD	unset	Value sent in that POST field when login requires an extra token
WP_ADMIN_BUNDLES	all	Subset of bundles to run
WP_ADMIN_ORDER_CREATE	true	Create disposable order
WP_ADMIN_COUPON_CREATE	true	Create disposable coupon
WP_ADMIN_CUSTOMER_CREATE	true	Create disposable customer
WP_ADMIN_PRODUCT_CREATE	true	Create disposable product draft
WP_ADMIN_CLEANUP	true	Run cleanup after actions
WP_ORDER_SEARCH_QUERY	unset	Enable O3 order search
WP_PRODUCT_SEARCH_QUERY	unset	Enable P3 product search
WP_COUPON_SEARCH_QUERY	unset	Enable C2 coupon search
WP_CUSTOMER_SEARCH_QUERY	unset	Enable U2 customer search

Fixture IDs and save toggles are documented in .env.example.

Maximum coverage .env

Use this when you want every optional URL pattern without mutating existing site data (only DOMAIN, credentials, and STACK_LABEL required beyond defaults):

WP_ORDER_SEARCH_QUERY=1
WP_PRODUCT_SEARCH_QUERY=k6
WP_COUPON_SEARCH_QUERY=k6
WP_CUSTOMER_SEARCH_QUERY=k6
WP_ADMIN_PRODUCT_CAT=uncategorized

All create/cleanup flags default to enabled in .env.example.

Repository layout

.
  LICENSE
  Makefile
  docker-compose.yml
  .env.example
  README.md
  README-TEST.md
  scripts/
    run-admin.sh
    collect-site-brief.sh
  tests/
    examples/wp-admin-flow.test.js
    lib/
    smoke/
  results/          # generated CSV output (gitignored; .gitkeep only)

Smoke test

Pull images first if you have not run make pull:

make pull
make smoke

Parser/helper smoke test (no live site or credentials required).

Further reading

• README-TEST.md — step catalog, URL patterns, PHP header setup, pacing, writing new tests