Performance testing is the process of simulating user activity on a website or application with the aim of finding performance bottlenecks (weaknesses) and vulnerabilities (faults). Automated performance tests are needed because testing manually would be time-consuming and expensive; some computerized solutions can even create detailed performance benchmarks that may be used to track the system’s capacity over time.
This article features some popular automated performance testing tools, which you can use for load, stress, and functional testing.
Katalon Studio
Katalon Studio is an all-in-one solution that supports web, API, mobile, and desktop app test automation. It is powerful in enabling cross-functional operations for product development teams at scale.
As a codeless solution, Katalon Studio is easy to use, robust to expand, yet contains the necessary components for advanced needs with built-in keywords and project templates.
In addition, it provides a host of seamless integrations with SDLC management, CI/CD pipeline, team collaborate applications, etc. Users can leverage Katalon Store – a plugin and extension marketplace, to add more features and optimize their test automation strategies.
Katalon Studio has been recognized by Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice in 2020 and is trusted by over 65,000+ companies worldwide.=> Visit Katalon Studio Website
QA Wolf
QA Wolf is an open-source end-to-end automated testing tool and one of the fastest ways to create QA tests that we’ve seen. It’s fully hosted, so no downloads or installation are required.
Its automatic code generation and low learning curve enable your entire team to get involved in test creation from the non-technical members to the senior developers.=> Visit QA Wolf Website
Selenium
Needless to say, selenium is one of the best open source testing tools that is available today. Being compatible with quite a lot of programming languages, testing frameworks, browsers and operating systems, Selenium is an awesome automation testing tool for web apps.
It helps you to create very effective test scripts for regression testing, exploratory testing, and quick bug reproduction.
Visit Selenium Website here
=> Want to learn more about Selenium tool? Check out our series of tutorials
Appium
Appium open source test automation framework is primarily envisioned for mobile apps. Built on client/server architecture, Appium automates the applications that are created for iOS and Android.
It is a well-liked mobile automation testing tool attributable to its easy installation and usage.
Visit Appium Website here
Recommended Read => Informative Tutorials on Appium Series
Robotium
Robotium is an open-source tool that acts as a test automation framework which is mainly intended for Android UI testing. It supports graybox UI testing, system testing, functional testing and user acceptance testing for both native and hybrid Android based applications.
Visit Robotium Website here
Cucumber
It is an open-source tool based upon the concept of Behavioral Driven Development Using which Cucumber allows you to do automated acceptance testing by executing examples that optimally describe the behavior of the application.
It has cross-platform OS support and compatibility with programming languages like Ruby, Java and.NET.
The best part is that Cucumber allows you to have a single live document for both specification and test documentation.
Visit Cucumber Website here
Watir
Watir (enunciated as water) is the short form for Web Application Testing in Ruby. This is an extremely lightweight, technology independent open source testing tool for web automation testing.
It allows you to write simple, adaptable readable and maintainable automated tests.
Visit Watir Website here
Sikuli
Sikuli is an open source testing tool which is built upon the concept of image recognition and possesses the ability to automate anything that is seen on the screen. It is very useful to automate non-web-based desktop applications.
It is also known for its quick bug reproduction.
Visit Sikuli Website here
Apache JMeter
Apache JMeter is an open source Java desktop app which is intended mainly for web applications’ load testing. It also supports unit testing and limited functional testing.
It has a lot of good features like dynamic reporting, portability, powerful Test IDE, etc and supports different type of applications, protocols, shell scripts, Java objects, and databases.
Visit JMeter Website here
WatiN
It is the short form for Web Application Testing in.NET. WatiN is an open source test automation framework that aids in UI and functional web app testing. This tool is mainly intended for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.
Visit WatiN Website here
SoapUI
SoapUI is a very popular open source API Test Automation Framework for SOAP & REST. It supports functional testing, performance testing, data-driven testing and test reporting as well.
Visit SoapUI Website here
Taurus
Although not specifically related to Perf testing, Taurus provides an automation-friendly framework for continuous testing, including functional and performance. Read More »
Artillery
Artillery is a modern, powerful & easy-to-use load testing and functional testing toolkit. Use it to ship scalable applications that stay performant & resilient under high load. Read More »
Goad
Goad takes full advantage of the power of Amazon Lambdas for distributed load testing. You can use goad to launch HTTP loads from up to four AWS regions at once. Each lambda can handle hundreds of concurrent connections, able to achieve peak loads of up to 100,000 concurrent requests. Read More »
Apache Bench
ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your current Apache installation performs. Read More »
Capybara
Capybara is an open source acceptance test framework that is helpful in testing web applications. It simulates the behavior of a real user that interacts with the application.
It can be used in conjunction with other testing tools like Cucumber, RSpec, Minitest, etc.
Visit Capybara Website here
Testia Tarantula
This free and open source tool is created by one of the leading software company – Prove Expertise in Finland. It is a modern web tool for software test management mainly intended for agile projects.
Test executions can be quickly planned by using its tagging features and easy drag & drop interface.
Smart tags for fix verification and dashboard for managers are also some of its cool features.
Visit Tarantula Website here
Testlink
Test Link is an open source web-based test management tool which is primarily featured for test plans, test cases, user roles, test projects and test specifications.
It offers cross-platform OS support and gets well integrated with other bug tracking systems like JIRA, Bugzilla, Redmine, etc.
Visit TestLink Website here
Windmill
Windmill is an open source web testing tool created for automating and debugging the web applications. It offers cross browser and cross platform support for web app testing.
By May 2016, Windmill was actively maintained. But now, it is covered by web driver/selenium 2.
Visit Windmill Website here
TestNG
TestNG is an open source testing framework enthused by Junit and Nunit with some new features added to make it a more powerful tool? It supports almost all kinds of testing like unit testing, functional testing, integration testing, data-driven testing, end-to-end testing, etc.
A few of its cool features include annotations, large thread pools, flexible test configuration, support for parameters, different tools, plug-ins, etc.
Visit TestNG Website here
Marathon
Marathon is an open source test automation framework which is designed to test Java-based GUI applications. This tool is mainly intended for acceptance testing.
It allows you to record and replay the tests and generate test reports as well. You should use Marathon if you are testing a small project and if your application screen size is limited to 10 screens.
Note: Marathon ITE is a successor to Marathon which allows you to come up with resilient test suites for large and complex projects. However, it is a licensed tool. But you can check for its free trial.
Visit Marathon Website here
httest
Httest is used to implement all types of Http-based tests. It offers a range of Http based functionalities. It allows testing of complex scenarios very effectively.
Visit httest Website here
Xmind
It is an open source and free mind mapping software useful for regression testing. It is built on java platform and has cross-OS support. It’s a light-weight app, provides good encapsulation and also produces an artifact that tells about the total time spent on testing.
Visit Xmind Website here
Wiremock
It is an open source testing tool for Http based application programming interfaces. It acts as a service virtualization tool that mocks the API for providing quick and powerful end to end testing.
Visit Wiremock Website here
k6
k6 is an open source load and performance testing tool for testing cloud-native applications, APIs and microservices. It’s a modern developer-centric CLI tool with test cases written in ES6 JavaScript and with builtin support for HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and WebSocket protocols.
k6 is purposefully built for automation, and can easily be introduced into automation pipelines in Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps Pipelines, CircleCI and other CI/CD tools for performance regression testing.
Visit k6 Website here
Conclusion
Performance testing and load testing are an integral part of web application development and maintenance. Automated performance and load testing tools enable measuring the performance of a website or application under variable load conditions to evaluate system behavior and stability.