Web Performance Testing is vital to the success of your website. But what web performance testing tools are best? And how can the best web performance testing tools help you? We will look at today’s current favorite web performance testing tools for both desktop and cloud environments, highlight their important features, examine the tool’s capabilities for regression testing, cross-browser compatibility, and browser support, evaluate key web performance tests you should consider launching to test if your site is fast enough.
The idea behind this article is to give you a glimpse of what’s available. We should give you enough information to be able to do an initial comparison between them, should that be something that you’re interested in doing. Web performance testing tools have evolved because developers have become more sophisticated about what it takes to build websites that are fast and scalable. These web performance testing tools are helpful for any kind of development process because the goal is always about developing websites that are fast so they can easily handle higher volumes of traffic, are agile so they are easy for developers to release updates because the code is well-written, are scalable so
WebLOAD
This is an enterprise-scale load testing tool that can generate real-life and reliable load scenarios, even in most complex systems. Its smart analytics provide in-depth performance insights. The tool comes with built-in support for hundreds of technologies. It also integrates with several tools to support simpler monitoring.
The key features of this performance testing tool are as follows:
- It is available on the Cloud or as an on-premise deployment
- Readily extensible and supports all the major web technologies
- Creates a flexible test environment
- Native JavaScript based on smart scripting with validation engines, parameterization, and powerful correlation
- Detects bottlenecks automatically
WebLOAD is widely used by performance testing services with complex and heavy user load requirements. You can conduct stress and load testing on any web-based software by creating load from on-premise systems and the Cloud. It supports technologies including enterprise applications to web protocols. It supports integration with tools like Selenium, Jenkins, and many others to allow continuous load testing for DevOps.
LoadNinja
LoadNinja allows you to build scriptless load tests. It is preferred by performance testing services because it helps reduce testing times by half. Other advantages include replacing load emulators with real browsers and generating actionable metrics.
This tool allows you to debug in the real-time, record client-side interactions, identify performance issues instantly, and do much more. LoadNinja allows you to boost your testing coverage without compromising on quality. It removes cumbersome, repetitive tasks involved in script translation, dynamic correlation, and script scrubbing. It allows you to spend more time in developing scalable applications and less time on creating load testing scripts.
The key features of LoadNinja are as follows:
- Real browser load testing at scale
- Create a scriptless load test and playback feature
- Real-time management of virtual user activity
- Real-time test debugging
- Advanced browser-based metrics with reporting and analytics features
- Cloud-based hosting eliminates maintenance of the server
LoadNinja supports the following protocols:
- HTTPS
- HTTP
- Java-based protocol
- SAP GUI Web
- Google Web Toolkit
- WebSocket
- Oracle Forms
LoadView
LoadView utilizes real browser-based load testing for websites, web applications, and APIs. It creates multi-step scripts that simulate users interacting with your website or application. With LoadView by Dotcom-Monitor, you can show the actual performance of your applications under load.
| Features | Protocols |
| Cloud-based load testing in real browsersSupports Rich Internet ApplicationsQuickly and easily build test scripts without touching a line of codeTest compatibility on mobile browsers and devicesIdentify bottlenecks and ensure scalabilityPerformance metrics and reports that can be shared with various internal stakeholders | FlashSilverlightJavaHTML5PHPRuby |
NeoLoad
NeoLoad is an innovative performance testing platform designed to automate test design, maintenance, and analysis for Agile and DevOps teams. It integrates with continuous delivery pipelines to support performance testing.
| Features | Protocols |
| Automated test design enabling faster test creationIntegration with CI servers for automated test runtimeIt consists of Shared test scripts and reportsHybrid on-premise and cloud load generation from over 70 global localizations | HTTPHTTPSSOAPRESTFlex PushAJAX Push |
Boomq.io
Boomq.io is the new generation load testing tool which allows running complex tests in the cloud to anyone interested in load testing. You can be a marketer, product or project manager, developer or, naturally, a performance engineer: anyway, you will find boomq.io really useful.
We put it on the third place in the list, since it is super handy to compare the results of the tests, and trend reports help to localize the bottlenecks really quickly.
Boomq.io provides an easy-to-use instrument for marketing specialists. It allows import of load profile data from Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrika and other sources, retrieves statistical information and lets you run performance tests without any coding or other engineering. You don’t even need to know any programming languages.
Developers and performance engineers will find boomq.io handy for conducting performance tests in the cloud. They can use a full suite of testing tools, such as HAR/Insomnia import, request definition, parameterization and correlation running in the cloud as SaaS service. You can also manage and reuse tests, centralize the assets, compare the results between the tests, see trends across time and share results and reports. No need to worry about infrastructure deployment, though.
Product and project managers will find it easy to analyze the results of the recurring tests online using detailed web-accessible dashboards.
Overall, boomq.io represents a new generation of performance testing products which allow users to easily create, plan, run and execute tests in the cloud using a simple and straightforward web interface.
Pros
- Easy-to-use web portal for all your performance testing needs
- Ability to define emulated user actions without coding
- Easily build your profile based on statistics from Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrika, etc
- Record your tests in any browser, such as Chrome or Firefox, via HAR import
- Import your requests from functional testing tools, such as Insomnia or Postman
- JMeter plugin to easily upload your work into cloud and support your existing workflows
- Easily shareable test results through a web report
- Detailed and visual test-to-test comparison
- Easy to read SLAs immediately indicating the test status
- Trending of the multiple test results, giving a high-level overview of the multiple SLAs over multiple test-runs
- Ability to run the tests and receive results through a modern API, which could be easily called from your favorite CI/CD conveyor (GitHub. Gitlab, CircleCI etc) or any other system
Cons
- At this point Boomq.io only supports HTTP(-s)-based protocols
- If your test environment is not accessible over WAN, you will need to buy an Enterprise license of boomq.io to deploy it in your own environment
Protocols
- HTTP
- REST
- SOAP
Pricing
| Demo | Standard (monthly) | PRO (monthly) | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 concurrent test | 1 concurrent test | Multiple | Ask vendor forquotation |
| 10 users max | 200 users max | 5000 users max per month | |
| 15 minutes max test duration | 60 minutes max test duration | 48 hours max test duration | |
| 5 test runs total | 10 tests per month | 1000 tests per month | |
| Free | $50 | $400 |
Boomq is a cloud-based subscription solution, so you only pay for what you use. A free license allows up to 5 test runs, while pricing for more tests starts at $50 per month. You save money, as there is no need to hire staff, and product operations are included into the subscription cost.
Best For
Are you testing a website, API or an app? Use load testing platform boomq.io to accelerate your testing cycles by a magnitude. If you don’t have any experience in performance testing, it’s all right: you don’t need it with boomq.io.
Conclusion
Web performance testing tools are indispensable in the software development lifecycle. These testing tools are particularly helpful to ensure that the web page or application is correctly communicating requests and responses with external partner systems, business applications, databases, etc. There are several good options for performing web performance testing. I have created a list of my favorite web performance testing tools.