---
title: "Elasticsearch | Grafana k6 documentation"
description: "k6 has an output extension to store k6 metrics in Elasticsearch. This document shows you how to configure the k6 Elasticsearch integration."
---

# Elasticsearch

Using the [Elasticsearch k6 extension](https://github.com/elastic/xk6-output-elasticsearch), you can store k6 metrics in [Elasticsearch](https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch) and analyze your performance results with Kibana or Grafana.

## Build the k6 version

To build a k6 binary with the extension, first, make sure you have [Go](https://golang.org/doc/install) and [Git](https://git-scm.com/) installed on your machine.

Then, open your terminal and run the following commands:

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```bash
# Install xk6
go install go.k6.io/xk6/cmd/xk6@latest

# Build the k6 binary
xk6 build --with github.com/elastic/xk6-output-elasticsearch

... [INFO] Build environment ready
... [INFO] Building k6
... [INFO] Build complete: ./k6
```

xk6 will create the new k6 binary in the local folder.

> Note
> 
> To learn more about how to build custom k6 versions, check out [xk6](https://github.com/grafana/xk6).

## Run the test

Check that the Elasticsearch instance to store the k6 metrics is running.

If you’re running on Elasticsearch cloud, use the previous k6 binary and run the test passing the cloud credentials as follows:

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```bash
# export cloud configuration
export K6_ELASTICSEARCH_CLOUD_ID=your-cloud-id-here
export K6_ELASTICSEARCH_USER=your-user-here
export K6_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD=your-password-here

# run the test
./k6 run script.js -o output-elasticsearch
```

k6 runs the test script and sends the metrics in real-time to Elasticsearch.

You can also send the metrics to a local Elasticsearch cluster:

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```bash
# export local url
export K6_ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://localhost:9200

# run the test
./k6 run script.js -o output-elasticsearch
```

> Caution
> 
> Security and self-signed certificates for non-cloud clusters are not yet supported.

You can now connect to Elasticsearch and query the [k6 metrics](/docs/k6/latest/using-k6/metrics/) stored in the `k6-metrics` index. The following example uses an unsecured local Elasticsearch, version `7.17.9`:

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```bash
curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/k6-metrics/_search?pretty' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{
  "sort": [
    {
      "Time": {
        "order": "desc"
      }
    }
  ],
  "size": 10
}'
```

Or use [Kibana Discover](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.17/discover.html):

### Options

Here is the full list of options that can be configured and passed to the extension:

Expand table

| Name                            | Value                                                                              |
|---------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `K6_ELASTICSEARCH_CLOUD_ID`     | Elasticsearch `cloud.id`, which can be found in the Elastic Cloud web console.     |
| `K6_ELASTICSEARCH_FLUSH_PERIOD` | Define how often metrics are sent to Elasticsearch. The default value is 1 second. |
| `K6_ELASTICSEARCH_URL`          | Elasticsearch URL.                                                                 |
| `K6_ELASTICSEARCH_USER`         | Elasticsearch username.                                                            |
| `K6_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD`     | Elasticsearch password.                                                            |