Application performance testing tools are used to test the performance of web applications. Performance is an attribute of an application that assists in determining how fast or slow an application responds to user requests, or system-generated events.
Load testing is a software testing process used to determine the peak performance capabilities and bottlenecks of a computer system or network, both hardware and software. Performance testing, in general, is part of non-functional software testing and aims at evaluating the behavior of the application under test in terms of throughput, response time, and resource utilization.
NeoLoad
NeoLoad is the most automated performance testing platform for enterprise organizations that continuously test applications and APIs. NeoLoad provides testers and developers with automatic test design and maintenance, the most realistic simulation of user behavior, fast root cause analysis, and built-in integrations with the entire SDLC toolchain.
NeoLoad lets you reuse and share test assets and results from functional testing tools to analytics and metrics from APM tools. NeoLoad supports a full range of mobile, web, and packaged applications, like SAP, to cover all testing needs.
Continuously schedule, manage and share test resources and results across the organization to ensure application performance.
System Requirements: This tool is compatible with operating systems like Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
LoadComplete
Easy and affordable performance testing tool. LoadComplete enables you to create and execute realistic load tests for websites and web apps. It automates creating realistic load tests by recording user interactions and simulating these actions with hundreds of virtual users either from your local computers or from the cloud.
LoadComplete helps you check your web server’s performance under a massive load, determine its robustness and estimate its scalability. It also provides detailed metrics and reports that help you gain in-depth insights into infrastructure performance, application behavior, and end-user experience.
System requirements: This tool works on 64-bit operating systems such as Windows XP Professional and Windows 7 or later.
WAPT
Performance Testing tool for websites and intranet applications: WAPT refers to the Web Application Performance tool. These are the scales or analyzing tools for measuring the performance and output of any web application or web-related interfaces.
These tools help us to measure the performance of any web services, web applications or any other web interfaces. With this tool, you have the advantage of testing the web application performance under different environments and different load conditions.
WAPT provides detailed information about virtual users and their output to its users during load testing. This is considered to be the most cost-effective tool for analyzing the performance of web services.
The WAPT tool can test the web application on its compatibility with the browser and operating system. It is also used for testing the compatibility with the windows application in certain cases.
WAPT System Requirement: Windows OS is required for this testing tool.
Loadster
Loadster is a desktop-based advanced HTTP load testing tool. The web browser can be used to record scripts that are easy to use and record. Using the GUI you can modify the basic script with dynamic variables to validate the response.
With control over network bandwidth, you can simulate a large virtual user base for your application stress tests.
After the test, an executed HTML report is generated for analysis. This tool is the best way to identify the performance bottlenecks in your application.
Loadster System Requirements: Windows 7/Vista/XP
k6
k6 is a modern open-source load testing tool that provides an outstanding developer experience to test the performance of APIs and websites. It is a feature-rich and easy-to-use CLI tool with test cases written in ES5.1 JavaScript and support for HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and WebSocket protocols.
“Like Unit testing, for Performance” – is the motto of k6. It provides native Pass/Fail behavior for easy automation and integration into CI pipelines. Additionally, the community has built a browser recorder and converters (JMeter, Postman, Swagger/OpenAPI) to facilitate the test creation process.
k6 runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.
Testing Anywhere
Testing Anywhere is an Automated testing tool that can be employed for testing the performance of any website, web application, or any other object. Many developers and testers make use of this tool to find out the bottlenecks in their web applications and rectify them accordingly.
It is a powerful tool that can test any application automatically. This testing tool comes along with a built-in editor which allows the users to edit the testing criteria according to their needs.
Testing Anywhere tool involves 5 simple steps to create a test. They are object recorder, advanced web recorder, SMART test recorder, Image recognition, and Editor with 385+ comments. This testing software was originally developed by San Jose-based Automation Anywhere Inc. Today, there are more than 25000 users for this product.
System Requirement: This tool is compatible with all versions of Windows OS.
Kinsta APM
Need a hassle-free performance monitoring solution for your WordPress website? It’s designed to let you find and resolve performance issues on your Kinsta-hosted sites. With a simple and easy-to-use UI, Kinsta APM is for everyone, whether they’re beginners to experts. Plus, it’s available in 10 languages under MyKinsta.
Kinsta APM provides insights on slow PHP transactions, external requests, MySQL queries, and more. You can debug database queries, non-optimized themes or plugins, and longer API calls and external URL requests, along with identifying slowest, median, and average transactions.
It’s helpful for everyone, from agencies and eCommerce site owners to developers, by helping them find and troubleshoot performance issues quickly while reducing their expenditure on costly APM tools.
Features and Benefits:
- Customer support team: With over ten years of experience, Kinsta’s seasoned customer support team will resolve all your site issues with 24/7 availability and a 100% solve rate. You can chat with them directly through MyKinsta and get instant replies.
- Pricing: The tool is free for every website that Kinsta hosts, no matter what plan you’ve chosen. You can also book a live demo to test the performance yourself.
Loadero
Loadero is a cloud-based performance and load testing tool that allows you to create faster performance tests and find system issues efficiently.
You can use Selenium, write test scripts in Java, JavaScript, or Python to conduct large-scale load testing or performance tests, and record web sessions for performing debugging. Configure the test by adding test users, groping, browser, location, counterfeit data feeds, network conditions, and more.
Loadero lets you set up multiple network settings and test your software in different network conditions. The cloud infrastructure of Loadero offers better scalability without letting you worry about maintenance.
This performance testing tool also helps you detect system limitations with comprehensive performance test reports, machine statistics, load times, screenshots, and recordings. In addition, Loadero features built-in validations to execute assertions automatically after the completion of the test run.
Features and Benefits
- Browser support: Loadero supports the five latest Google Chrome versions along with Mozilla Firefox.
- Reusable test codes: It lets you utilize the existing test setup to run load testing.
- Fake media: You can incorporate artificial media feed and simulate microphone and webcam inputs.
- Worldwide coverage: Perform tests from any of their 12 global locations.
- Pricing: It costs $250/month under the pay-as-you-go model.
LoadView
LoadView is also widely popular with performance testing services. This is an on-demand and fully-managed load testing and stress testing tool. It is different from most other load testing tools in that testing is conducted in real browsers. The result is close emulation of real users and highly accurate data. It is fully cloud-based and is readily deployed in minutes. It allows creating multi-step scripts simulating user interaction with your application or website.
Some of the key features of LoadView are as follows:
- Supports advanced load testing features like global Cloud-based infrastructure, point and click scripting, and real browser testing
- Allows instant and easy creation of test scripts without the need for coding
- Supports Rich Internet Applications including Java, Flash, HTML5, Ruby, Silverlight, and PHMP among others
- Over a dozen global Cloud locations supported by Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services
- Test compatibility with dozens of desktop and mobile devices and browsers
- Easy to share performance metrics and reports
- Identifies bottlenecks and supports scalability
Silk Performer
Silk Performer is enterprise-class stress and load testing tool. It is capable of testing application environments along with hundreds and thousands of concurrent users. It comes with the CloudBurst feature that enables QA teams to efficiently launch any kind of peak load performance test without worrying about complex infrastructure. You can execute tests from over 50 locations globally. It supports Google, AWS, Azure.
Here are the key features of Silk Performer:
- Components -> Workbench, Performance Explorer, and True Log Explorer
- Minimal hardware is required for virtual user simulation
- Simulates modifiable virtual users
- It supports integrated server monitoring
- Supports six models of workloads
- Stress test website with server side diagnostics
Silk Performer supports the following protocols: HTTP/HTML, HTTPS/HTML, HTTP/HTTPS, Flash, Email (SMTP/ POP), FTP, TCP/IP, LDAP, XML/SOAP, .NET and many more.
Gatling
Gatling is a relatively new open-source load testing tool that was created in 2012. It enables you to execute load simulation of concurrent users against the system via JMS, HTTP/S, or JDBC protocols. You can use this tool to simulate web users of a system to identify bottlenecks and optimize them.
It is compatible with all operating systems as it works on Java. Gatling has two executables: one is to record tests and the other one is used to execute them. All the tests are recorded in Scala. After the execution is completed, an immersive and graphical report of the test is generated.
Here are the key features of Gatling:
- It supports any operating system or browser
- Scripting language is Scala and has its own DSL
- Can execute tests in multiple test clouds
- Capable of scaling through Taurus with BlazeMeter or flood.io
Gatling supports the following protocols: HTTP/S, JMS, and JDBC.
StormForge
StormForge allows you to perform load testing of your apps for performance and scalability automated right into CI/CD workflow at an affordable cost. It helps you increase the application uptime, throughput, decrease latency and application errors, and scale to more users.
The tool brings all these capabilities in fewer resources, involving no manual process, offering environmental sustainability, and helps you reduce your monthly bills on the cloud. You can capture actual production traffic and ensure the test delivers authentic traffic patterns.
It works in an open-workload model, simulates real-world scenarios accurately, and provides better error detection problems.
StormForge also lets you minimize issues and improve the end-user experience by ensuring app performance under load and meeting SLAs. It offers extensive analytics and reports to help interpret, benchmark, and compare results easily.
Features and Benefits
- Repeatable: Use Performance Testing as Code on your CI/CD pipeline.
- Cloud-native: Works well on Kubernetes.
- Supported programming languages: It includes Java, Nginx, Go, and Python.
- Integration: It integrates flawlessly with your ecosystem like cloud providers (AWS, DigitalOcean, GCP, IBM, Azure), monitoring tools (Prometheus, Dynatrace, Datadog, New Relic, and Circonus), DevOps tools (Jenkins, Puppet, Chef, and Rancher Labs).
- Pricing: There’s a free tier available for three tests/month, while paid plans start at $150/month per app.
Benefits of Performance Testing
Now, let’s discuss some benefits of performance testing.
1. Measure the Software’s Speed, Stability, and Accuracy:
Speed, stability, and accuracy are some of the significant attributes of software performance. Hence, testing your application for these aspects lets you monitor how the software behaves under pressure and provides you with crucial details on how it can handle scalability.
Looking at the test results, developers can learn what changes they must incorporate into the software to overcome the negative points and make it more efficient.
2. Validate the Software’s Basic Features:
Your application’s success depends upon how strong its foundation is. Measuring the performance of fundamental features and functionalities of the software helps you make informed decisions and plan your business strategy on the software’s setup.
You can use your performance testing results in your research and development departments and pool your resources accordingly to enhance your software performance and product offering.
3. Identify Issues and Resolve Them:
Performance testing will tell you the key issues that you can correct before launching your site or app. That means you can quickly resolve all the problems identified and concentrate on improving its technology instead of fighting the issues after release.
4. Enhance the Software’s Load and Optimization Capability:
With performance testing, you can better handle volume and load capacity and optimize your software in such a way that helps the software withstand high numbers of concurrent users. It will also detect the scalability issues that you can address as soon as possible and allow the testers to tailor capacity to handle high demands.
5. Improve the Code Quality and Software Functionality:
When you can detect the issues in your software, you can eliminate them quickly. As a result, your developers can maintain quality code and improve the application’s functionality, delivering the expected speed, reliability, scalability, and stability.
6. Meet User Expectations:
Your customers won’t like slow, laggy software that kills their time and annoys them. They expect it to load quickly — within 2 to 3 seconds — and work smoothly, without any confusion. The first impression of your software is crucial in deciding whether users will want to continue using it or hit the uninstall button.
Performance testing helps you meet the desired software attributes and keep your users happy to continue using your software, boosting your revenue.
Conclusion
it’s sufficient to have an excellent system in front of you, but you must ensure that the application is accessible for your customers. A failure in the performance of the site can drive away prospects and ruin your company brand.
Application performance monitoring is no longer an option, it’s a necessity in today’s multi-device, multi-user environment. As software becomes more complex with feature-rich web applications handling multiple transactions with intense customer interaction, you are forced to combat the issues of scalability and performance that come with your app.