---
title: "Real time | Grafana k6 documentation"
description: "Send your time-series k6 metrics to multiple file formats and services"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Real time

Besides the [end-of-test summary](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/end-of-test/), you can also view metrics as granular data points. k6 can stream the metrics in real-time and either:

- Write output to a file
- Send output to an external service.

## Write to file

Currently, k6 supports writing to the following file formats:

- [CSV](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/csv/)
- [JSON](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/json/)

## Stream to service

You can also stream real-time metrics to:

- [Grafana Cloud k6](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/cloud/)

As well as the following third-party services:

- [Amazon CloudWatch](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/amazon-cloudwatch/)
- [Apache Kafka](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/apache-kafka/)
- [Datadog](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/datadog/)
- [Dynatrace](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/dynatrace/)
- [Elasticsearch](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/elasticsearch/)
- [Grafana Cloud Prometheus](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/grafana-cloud-prometheus/)
- [InfluxDB](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/influxdb/)
- [Netdata](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/netdata/)
- [New Relic](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/new-relic/)
- [OpenTelemetry](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/opentelemetry/)
- [Prometheus remote write](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/prometheus-remote-write/)
- [TimescaleDB](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/timescaledb/)
- [StatsD](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/results-output/real-time/statsd/)
- [Other alternative with a custom output extension](https://grafana.com/docs/k6/v2.3.x/extensions/create/output-extensions/)

> Note
> 
> This list applies to local tests, not to [cloud tests](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/testing/k6/).

## Read more

- [Ways to visualize k6 results](https://k6.io/blog/ways-to-visualize-k6-results/)
- [k6 data collection pipeline](https://grafana.com/blog/2023/08/10/understanding-grafana-k6-a-simple-guide-to-the-load-testing-tool/)