Website load testing is one of the most important tasks in performance engineering. However, it is often underestimated, and it’s often done without proper guidance. There are lot of websites load testing tools available online. But choosing the right one for your needs can be tricky.
Here are some best free website load testing tools that I’ve personally used over the years.
Locust ![Locust](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/icons8-Grasshopper-50.png)
Locust is a simple-to-use, distributed, user load testing tool that can help you capture response times.
What scripting languages does it use? The best one — Python! 🙂
It is used to helps performance test websites or other applications.
Locust can also help you figure out how many concurrent users a system can handle.
Where tools like jMeter are based upon, a thread-based architecture that consumes a lot of resources. Locust uses an event-based approach that uses fewer resources.
Rahul Solanki a technical leader at BlueConch Technologies mentioned to me that when he compared it with JMeter, the number of resources that Locust occupies was around 70 percent less.
If you’re familiar with the term “load generators,” Locust uses the term “swarm”–as in you can point a swarm of locusts to put a load on your website.
You can define the behavior you want for each of your Locust instances. It also gives you the ability to monitor the swarming process from a web UI in real-time.
Some of the cool key features you get with Locust are:
- The ability to create your test scenarios using straight Python
- You can easily scale the number of users you need to emulate
- It has a nice Web-based UI
- Extensible
- Good for testing APIs
Cons
Since its a newer tool it has far fewer plugins than JMeter
It currently has 15.7k stars on GitHub.
![Performance Testing Tutorial | TestGuild](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Performance-Exploration-Course-Feature-500x262.png)
Fiddler with BlackWidow and Watcher ![svg+xml;nitro-empty-id=OTM4OjIwNA==-1;base64,PHN2ZyB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgNTAgNTAiIHdpZHRoPSI1MCIgaGVpZ2h0PSI1MCIgeG1sbnM9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDAvc3ZnIj48L3N2Zz4=](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/icons8-Violin-50.png)
This might seem like an odd combination to have on a performance tool list.
But performance engineering expert Todd DeCapua in a previous PerfGuild conference session recommended using Fiddler with Watcher and BlackWidow to create a quick-start automation testing performance solution.
Fiddler enables you to do many things, but it’s probably best described as a packet capture tool.
While Fiddler may not be considered a load testing solution it does many things that allow you to debug website issues, and with one of its many extensions, you can accomplish even more.
Some things you might want to use Fiddler for:
- Troubleshooting issues with your web application
- Security testing
- Performance evaluations
- Debugging web traffic from most computers and devices
- Many integration features
- Handy for finding performance bottlenecks
- Fiddler is already a pretty popular tool among developers. Many use it for debugging to view the HTTP requests their computer is sending to a service or website.
Watcher is a security add-in for Fiddler which will enable you to get some security results quickly. BlackWidow is a web crawler that gives you the functionality to point it towards a web address and then be able to drill down on results.
For someone who’s just getting started in performance engineering, these three tools working together can provide a great way to get that free look and feel as well as results that one might not otherwise be able to obtain quickly.
Todd actually has a session during a past PerfGuild Online Conference where he gives a demo of this approach.
WebLOAD
![Webload new logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo_Webload_black_noline.png)
Enterprise-grade load and performance testing tool for web applications. WebLOAD is a tool of choice for enterprises with heavy user load and complex testing requirements. It allows you to perform load and stress testing on any internet application by generating load from the cloud and on-premises machines.
WebLOAD’s strengths are its flexibility and ease of use – enabling you to quickly define the tests you need with features like DOM-based recording/playback, automatic correlation, and JavaScript scripting language.
Further reading =>> How to run URL-based Load Test with WebLOAD
The tool provides a clear analysis of your web application performance, pinpointing issues and bottlenecks that may stand in the way of achieving your load and response requirements.
WebLOAD supports hundreds of technologies – from web protocols to enterprise applications and has built-in integration with Jenkins, Selenium and many other tools to enable continuous load testing for DevOps.
System Requirements: Windows, Linux=>Visit WebLOAD Website
LoadNinja
![LoadNinja New Logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/1_LoadNinja-New-Logo.png)
LoadNinja by SmartBear allows you to quickly create scriptless sophisticated load tests, reduces testing time by 50%, replaces load emulators with real browsers, and get actionable, browser-based metrics, all at ninja speed.
You can easily capture client-side interactions, debug in real-time, and identify performance problems immediately. LoadNinja empowers teams to increase their test coverage without sacrificing quality by removing the tedious efforts of dynamic correlation, script translation, and script scrubbing.
With LoadNinja, engineers, testers and product teams can focus more on building apps that scale and focus less on building load testing scripts.
Features:
- Scriptless load test creation & playback with InstaPlay recorder.
- Real browser load test execution at scale.
- VU Debugger – debug tests in real-time.
- VU Inspector – manage virtual user activity in real-time.
- Hosted on the cloud, no server machine & upkeep required.
- Sophisticated browser-based metrics with analytics and reporting features.
=> Click Here To Get A Free LoadNinja Trial
ReadyAPI Performance
![ReadyAPI Logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/1_Smartbear-ReadyAPI-Logo.png)
SmartBear offers an all-in-one automated API Testing Platform called ReadyAPI. It contains various tools like Swagger & SwaggerHub, SoapUI NG, ReadyAPI Performance, Secure Pro, ServiceV, and AlertSite.
ReadyAPI Performance is an API tool for load testing. This API testing tool will assure you that your APIs can perform anywhere. It will let you install load agents on any server or cloud as well as on-premise. It provides advanced performance metrics for load test runs.
SoapUI NG is a tool for functional testing and you can use these functional testing use cases designed in the SOAPUI for performance testing.
This load testing tool will help you with testing the speed, scalability, and performance of the APIs, Servers, and Network Resources. It has features of flexible load generation, parallel API load tests, server monitoring, and pre-built load templates.=> Visit ReadyAPI Performance Website
LoadView
![loadview-logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/loadview-logo-e1525026890107.png)
LoadView is a fully managed, on-demand load testing tool that allows complete hassle-free load and stress testing.
Unlike many other load testing tools, LoadView performs testing in real browsers (not headless phantom browsers), which provides extremely accurate data, closely emulating real users. You only pay for what you use and no contracts are required. LoadView is 100% cloud-based, scalable, and can be deployed in minutes.
Advanced Load Testing Features include Point and Click Scripting, Global Cloud-Based Infrastructure, Real Browser Testing=>Load Testing by LoadView
StormForge
![StormForge Logo](https://obiztools.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/StormForge-Logo.png)
StormForge offers fast and accurate enterprise-grade Performance-Testing-as-a-Service.
It is the only platform that combines performance testing with machine-learning powered optimization which allows users to both understand the performance and automatically identify the ideal configurations of the application for performance and resource utilization.
Use StormForge to load test your applications for performance and availability at scale before you release them to production. Create load tests in just three minutes and scale from tens to hundreds of thousands of requests per second, and even millions of concurrent users.
Easily create repeatable, automated load tests to incorporate into your CI/CD workflow. Capture actual production traffic to ensure that your load testing reflects actual traffic patterns.
Benefits:
- Shift performance is left to ensure performance and reliability before release.
- Improve user experience by ensuring application performance under load to meet SLAs and minimize business-impacting issues.
- Reduce risk and release with confidence by ensuring deployment success by testing with real-world scenarios before releasing new code into production.
- Build a culture of performance by empowering DevOps teams to build load testing into the CI/CD process to proactively ensure performance and reliability.
- Cut your cloud costs, cloud waste, lower your cloud bills, and improve your performance, guaranteed. StormForge guarantees a minimal reduction of Kubernetes cloud applications.
=> Get Started With StormForge For Free
WAPT
- An affordable, simple-to-use stress and load testing tool.
- Can test any website comprising of mobile sites, web portals, and business applications.
HPE Load Runner
- An end-to-end framework performance to recognize and resolve problems before application launch.
- Sustains wide array of applications to reduce skill and time.
- Consolidates with development tools like jUnit, IDE etc.
Testing Anywhere
- An automated testing tool with built-in intelligence to test the execution of any web application, website, or other objects.
- Script-less software supporting innumerable testing feasibilities.
StresStimulus
- Automatically settles playback errors due to its exclusive autocorrelation.
- Reports traffic for mobile operators- Android, Apple, Windows,and
- Advances several Enterprise applications SharePoint, CRM, Silverlight etc.
- Serves as a stand-alone add-on tool.
OpenSTA
- A free GUI-based load testing tool built for proficient testing users.
- Proficient in delivering the heavy load test and review for the scripted HTTP and HTTPS.
- Uses easy recordings to make load tests and generates statistics after performing them.
LoadComplete
- A desktop tool employed for load testing of web applications, providing stats on their stress, scalability, and performance.
- Records user interactions to build tests and assume these actions with many virtual users.
- Gives exact test analysis report after every test.
Loader
- A free cloud-based service to test the web application supporting stress and load by building thousands of concurrent connections.
- Monitor your application response in real-time in the mode of readable charts and graphs.
QEngine (ManageEngine)
- A most typical and easy automated testing tool for performance and load testing of your web applications.
- Manages performance leakages in web services or sites.
- Capable to conduct remote testing of web services from any geographical area.
Silk Performer
- Designed to provide a consistent user experience and unlimited cloud assistance for load testing anywhere, anytime, on any device.
- Serves purpose for low bandwidth users.
Conclusion
There are hundreds of tools you can use to load test your website, but most of them are paid. There is no harm in paying for a product, especially when it helps you increase your revenue, decrease your costs or improve the conversion rate of your site. That said, every company’s budget is unique. Likewise, every project’s requirements necessitate different types of tools. Not all of them require performance testing software packages. But sometimes it can be useful to know what tools are available to help you with load tests.