The free LoadRunner Load Testing tools let you see your applications and websites come to life under real-world conditions. Test how your application or website will react in hundreds of simulated real-world scenarios with our performance load testing software. We’ve already done the hard work so you don’t have to, making LoadRunner quick and easy to use.
Find the perfect balance of hardware to keep your application up all day, every day. Our load testing tools will help you define your application’s performance baseline, so you can choose the best hardware to meet your business needs after rollout.
k6
k6 is a developer-centric, open-source load testing tool for testing the performance of your back-end infrastructure.
You can also use k6 to start including performance testing into your continuous integration pipelines.
k6 is also Modern load testing tools built with Go and JavaScript so it integrates well into most developers’ workflow.
- Clean scripting API
- Provides distributed & Cloud execution
- Cool REST API orchestration ability
It currently has 11.7k stars on GitHub.
Tsung
Tsung is an open-source, multi-protocol distributed load testing tool.
- Can monitor a client’s CPU, memory, and network traffic
- It has an HTTP recorder
- Includes HTML reports and graphs
- Support protocols like HTTP, XMPP, LDAP, etc.
It currently has 2.1k stars on GitHub.
Siege 
Siege is a command-line HTTP load testing and benchmarking utility. It was designed to help developers measure their code under stress.
- Supports basic authentication, cookies, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols.
- Allows its users hit a server with a configurable number of simulated clients. Those clients place the server “under siege.”
- Great for a simple, brute-force type of testing tool
It currently has 4k stars on GitHub.
Bees with Machine Guns 
Developed by the Chicago Tribune, this is probably the coolest-sounding performance testing tools on this list.
Bees with Machine Guns describes itself as a utility for arming (creating) many bees (micro Amazon EC2instances) to attack (load test) targets (web applications).
This tool can easily help you load test a site that needs to handle high traffic.
Leverage Amazon EC2
It currently has 6k stars on GitHub.
For enterprise-wide performance testing tools, LoadRunner tends to be one of the most common but many of these open-source tools can get you most of the functionality you need. Also, most of these tools protocols can be used for both performance testing web application and performance testing web services.
LoadView:
Tool Overview: It is used for cloud-based load testing and empowers DevOps teams to efficiently test websites, web-apps, and application programming interfaces (API’s) with thousands of concurrent users. The agile and DevOps teams can test their website’s UX under load, verify performance and identify various bottlenecks within applications. This tool simulates API calls, validates API responses and verifies the most important SLA requirements.
Tool Functionality: LoadView uses the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to generate concurrent users load over the cloud during the load tests. The agile teams can test most complex applications by designing multiple test scenarios to test for. This tool tests and determines if the website (under testing) can handle spikes in traffic by generating load with a set number of concurrent users. Also, it tests the limits of infrastructure, every time by adjusting the load in real time. The test results can be seen in LoadView’s web interface and reports can be obtained either in CSV or PDF formats.
LoadUI Pro:
Tool Overview: This tool is used for load testing REST, SOAP API’s, databases and microservices. The simplicity of this tool is, it does not require a specific skill set in load testing and any user can create and execute tests. It is used to guide in building realistic performance test scenarios.
Tool Functionality: With LoadUI PRO, there is a flexibility to reuse all functional API tests built on the industry’s best open source tools. It helps to reduce the time taken to deploy REST and SOAP web services. It provides key insights that help to fix any performance bottlenecks. Its powerful and intuitive capabilities help to deliver scalable API’s. This tool is used to test the speed and scalability of new changes to the APIs in a short span of time. Users can gain insights from real-time API load tests and ensure that the API will handle any demand effectively.
VSTS:
Tool Overview: VSTS stands for Visual Studio Team Services; is an extension of Microsoft Visual Studio. It is an integrated development environment (IDE) and is usually run in the cloud (Azure). The tool is used to load test mobile applications or website’s performance before their launch to check any performance bottlenecks even before it reaches the customers.
Tool Functionality: This tool is used to run URL-based load tests with Azure DevOps and sets all the required parameters to run the test. When the test is completed, the results display the overall application performance in a separate summary page. This page displays important metrics such as average response time, user load, requests per second, failed requests, other intervening errors along with test usage. Response time pinpoints the time an application has taken to respond to requests which are the key metrics for measuring any app’s performance.
Apache JMeter
This is the most widespread & preferred open-source testing tool. This Java app was initially developed for testing web applications, but today it integrates various testing functionalities. It is highly recommended for scrutinizing and assessing the performance of an all-encompassing software, offering services inclusive of servers and networks. JMeter is majorly used for various web apps and supports consequential protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, XAML, FTP, SOAP & Java-based protocols.
Key Capabilities
- Supports multiple load injectors that can be managed using a single controller
- It doesn’t require a sophisticated infrastructure for conducting load tests
- Performs an accurate analysis of resource usage and load-based stats
- Compatible with all Java-based apps
- Less scripting efforts are needed as compared to other API performance testing tools
- Features a user-friendly interface
WebLOAD
This enterprise-grade performance testing platform can produce steadfast and real-life load scenarios, even in complex systems. Backed by robust analytics, it delivers accurate performance & load insights. This versatile platform supports multiple technologies and integrates several testing tools. The top choice of companies handling heavy user load necessities, WebLOAD facilitates easy testing of stress and load of both on-premise and cloud systems.
Key Capabilities
- Supports integration with Selenium, Jenkins, and other DevOps tools to facilitate continuous tests
- Easily accessible as cloud & on-premise deployment
- Creates a flexible testing environment
- Identifies performance bottlenecks
- Readily extendable and compatible with all major web technologies
- Native JavaScript supported by robust scripting with validation engines, parameterization & powerful correlation
IBM Rational Performance Tester
It is perfectly developed for running performance tests and permits you to verify the stability and scalability of web apps before deployment. This robust automated platform is fully equipped to collect all the data and analyze it to boost efficiency. It makes it easy to find and fix glitches in the app or server and is broadly used for developing an error-free and effective cloud service. It is compatible with HTTP, XML, SOA, Citrix, Socket Recording, Weblogic & Websphere.
Key Capabilities
- Ideal for scheduled & event-based testing
- Facilitates script-less tests
- Supports extensive tests that engage multiple users
- Compatible with automated testing data variation
- Generates real-time reports for immediate identification of performance issues
- Automates the detection of dynamic server response
Conclusion
Performance load testing tools give you the insight to pinpoint application performance issues quickly. Find out about different ways to better monitor your applications in this e-book.