API Performance Testing Tools Open Source

by

When it comes to online marketing, security is a common issue faced by many users. Each year there are many reports related to the hacking of accounts and websites. One way to avoid security issues is using an API(Application Programming Interface) which can be used to connect two systems together for achieving a specific purpose.

So, what is API Performance? It is a series of metrics that measure the responsiveness and performance of an application programming interface (API). These metrics are useful in determining many factors about the quality, availability, and function of an API. It highlights the capability of the API to handle the volume, load brevity, latency, concurrency, bandwidth usage, reliability, and security.

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is another free API testing tool for API, Web, Desktop App, and Mobile applications. It provides easy development by including all frameworks and plugins in one package. It is suitable for both beginners and experts with the Manual and Scripting modes.

Pros:

  • Katalon supports SOAP and RESTful requests.
  • It can be used for automated and exploratory testing.
  • It supports CI/CD integration.
  • It is a complete package and framework.

Cons:

  • It is difficult to troubleshoot issues.
  • It is hard to debug code, and there are no compile-time error checks.
  • It does not have support for distributed testing.

JMeter

Apache Jmeter is another open-source software for load and performance testing of applications. It is widely used for functional API testing. It comes with many API testing functionalities and a bunch of features to make the process more efficient.

Pros:

  • JMeter can be utilized in static and dynamic resource performance testing.
  • It allows developers to replay test results.
  • The interface of JMeter is user-friendly and can be used in a command-line interface.
  • JMeter supports per-thread cookies.

Cons:

  • It requires skilled testers.
  • It doesn’t support Javascript and, by extension, doesn’t automatically support AJAX requests.
  • Memory consumption is high in GUI mode, which causes it to give out errors for many users.

Karate DSL

Karate DSL, based on the Cucumber library, helps create scenarios for API-based BDD tests in a simple way without the need to write. It combines API test-automation, mocks, and performance-testing into a single, unified framework. It allows testers to create meaningful tests for web services using a domain-specific language.

Pros:

  • Karate DSL supports multi-thread parallel execution.
  • It allows configuration switching.
  • Karate DSL is a good option for testing GraphQL.
  • It supports XML as well as JSON.

Cons:

  • The tool doesn’t have Auth schemes out of the box.
  • There is no ‘Find Usage’, auto renaming.
  • Code support becomes very time consuming and expensive.

Tricentis Tosca

Another best API testing tool is Tricentis Tosca. If you are looking for a continuous testing platform for Agile and DevOps, you may consider this one. It supports many arrays of protocols like HTTP(s), JMS, AMQP, Rabbit MQ, TIBCO EMS, SOAP, REST, IBM MQ, NET TCP.

Pros:

  • Tosca reduces the time of regression testing.
  • The excellent results and dashboards give a nice view into results.
  • The API tests can be used across mobile, cross-browser, packaged apps, etc.
  • It maximizes reuse and maintainability with model-based test automation.

Cons:

  • Image comparison and visual validation are important, yet Tricentis doesn’t support these.

Assertible

Assertible is another open-source tool with GitHub forks. It mainly focuses on automation and reliability. The sync feature in Assertible allows testers to update their tests when their specifications change. In the recent update, Assertible got a new feature called Encrypted variables.

Pros:

  • It provides an easy way to create robust tests.
  • It will help you to reduce bugs in your application by allowing you to develop an automated QA system.
  • Assertible allows users to get a higher level of insights on their website’s services’ health.

Cons:

  • The platform might not be convenient if you like viewing a detailed quality report of your web services.

Silk Performer

Silk Performer tool is an enterprise-class load and stress testing tool and has the ability to test multiple application environments with thousands of concurrent users. It is one of the best load testing tools which supports the widest range of protocols.

Features:

There are many good load and stress test features in Silkperformer and those are listed as follows:

  • Components -> Workbench, True Log Explorer and Performance Explorer
  • Requires minimum hardware resources for virtual user simulation
  • Simulates modifiable virtual users
  • This load test tool Supports integrated server monitoring
  • Customer friendly licensing
  • Correlation and Parameterization is user friendly
  • No License requirement for Controllers or Individual Protocols
  • Handles Load Test in Project approach
  • Generates reports with tables and graphs and allows customization.
  • This stress testing tool supports six models of workloads.
  • This load tester tool provides Agent Health Control
  • Stress test website with server side diagnostics
  • Resource Management
  • It is one of the best website load testing tools that provides Version Control Management

Protocols

HTTP/HTML, HTTPS/HTML, HTTP/HTTPS, Flash, Email (SMTP/ POP), FTP, TCP/IP, LDAP, XML/SOAP, .NET and many more

Rational Performance Tester

Rational Performance Tester(RPT) is a performance and load testing tool developed by IBM Corporation. It is a performance test creation, execution, and analysis tool that helps the development team to validate the scalability and reliability of web-based applications before deployment into production.

Features:

There are good features that give confidence to the users that all performance-related bottlenecks are resolved. Following are some of the features of this tool:

  • No coding involved
  • It is one of the best performance testing tools that provides scheduled and event based testing
  • Real time reporting for immediate performance problem identification
  • It is one of the best website load testing tools that can run with large multi users tests
  • Accurate user profile workloads
  • This load test software has automated test data variation
  • Automatic identification of dynamic server responses
  • Performs the website load test with rendered HTML view of web pages visited during test recordings
  • Environment and Platform support
  • Entrust security protocol support
  • Java code insertion for customization

Protocols:

Citrix, Socket Recording, Web HTTP, SOA, SAP, XML, Websphere, Weblogic

SmartMeter.io

SmartMeter.io is an alternative to JMeter and aims to fix its drawbacks. It is one of the best load testing tools that allow for easy scriptless test scenario creation using the so-called Recorder, yet still lets you make advanced edits of the test. It also excels in test reporting and makes use of functions such as automatic test criteria evaluation, test runs comparison, and trend analysis. It fully supports CI/CD integration. Available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Features:

  • This load test software provides scriptless test scenario creation
  • Comprehensive reporting with automatic evaluation and test runs comparison
  • GUI test run with real time results
  • State of the art response body extractor (Boundary body extractor)
  • CI/CD ready

Protocols:

  • HTTP, JDBC, LDAP, SOAP, JMS, and FTP

Loadmill

Loadmill is a commercial web service that helps you to automate API tests and start load tests based on recordings or manual input.

It offers a free tier that should cover all needs of individual developers.

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Can import test plans from other tools such as JMeter
  • Can import recorded HTTP traffic such as HAR files
  • Straight forward to extract and reuse data from previous responses
  • Free tier includes all features
  • Distributed load tests in various locations
  • Offers npm package + REST API for CI/CD or custom scripts
  • Support for teams

Cons:

  • Current boxed UI doesn’t align well with smaller screens or windows

Telerik Test Studio

Telerik’s Test Studio is a standalone testing tool for UI, REST API, and load tests. It focuses a lot on creating tests and integrating them with existing workloads such as CI/CD, bug tracking, etc.

Pros:

  • Ships with a test recorder
  • Has a built-in CLI tools
  • Wide variety of supported protocols/application types such as web, PWA, MVC, etc.
  • Reports
  • Integrates into popular SCM, CI/CD and bug trackers
  • Can import data from Fiddler
  • GUI lovers get used to the UI fairly easy

Cons:

  • Heavy UI
  • Runs only on Windows
  • Focuses too much on .NET Framework

Conclusion

Everything we do online becomes more awesome when apps and programs communicate with each other. This means APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and Web APIs (Web Application Program Interfaces) are super awesome. They let us programmatically interact with data and functionality that we wouldn’t be able to access otherwise, and in this world of “big data,” they give us the opportunity to combine our favorite tools and turn them into something really awesome.

Leave a Comment