Performance testing is an IT service quality assurance process that measures, monitors and compares the performance of a system or network against a baseline. It confirms whether the system or network will be able to provide adequate performance under defined conditions. A systematic process of comparing execution metrics of a new release of an application with the performance metrics of a previous release, using synthetic transactions against both releases, can yield more valuable information than just running the new software against actual production data under load.
Here are some basic performance testing tools.
APACHE JMETER:
Apache JMeter is an open source performance & load testing tool, which is developed and maintained by Apache. JMeter is mostly used for load testing of web services and web application servers. Testing teams are also known to use it for functional testing of web services. Following are some key points about JMeter.
Open-source: JMeter is open source and available free of cost; therefore many software teams prefer to use it for its cost effectiveness.
Components: JMeter has test elements like Thread Group, Samplers, Listeners, Pre & Post processors. Other than that, there are tons of third party free/commercial tools which can be integrated with JMeter to enhance its capabilities like JMeter Extras plugin, BlazeMeter, UBIK load pack and Loadosophia etc.
Platform compatibility: JMeter is compatible with Windows, Mac and all UNIX based systems.
Supported applications: JMeter primarily supports Java & Java server page applications. But it is also equally good to test server applications / web services / databases developed in other technologies. JMeter can also be used for load testing of mobile application server-side.
Reporting: In open source/free tools category, JMeter is one of most mature tools as its first was version was released in 1998 and since then there have been many upgrades to it. Thanks to continuous support it delivers reliable results. Reports generated though are very limited and teams tend to use external plugins/tools for more detailed reporting.
Available resources: JMeter has one of largest online community which shares helpful information with each other through different forums and software testing blogs. Because of this reason JMeter is considered a great option for beginners in performance and load testing.
MICRO FOCUS (HP) LOADRUNNER:
LoadRunner is a commercial performance testing solution originally developed by HP and now acquired by Micro Focus. It has very advanced set of features which usually do not come built in with open-source or free tools. Some of the key points about LoadRunner are listed below.
Commercial tool: LoadRunner is a commercial product, falling in category of most expensive performance testing tools. Micro Focus (previously HP) LoadRunner license cost varies depending on required virtual users, protocols and perpetual licenses etc.
Components: LoadRunner is not a single application but a complete suite of tools like VU Generator, Controller, Analyzer, Load generator, Load calculator and protocol advisor.
Platform compatibility: LoadRunner can operate from Windows operating system or can be used as a cloud solution.
Supported applications: LoadRunner (performance center) provides support for widest range of applications. It can be used to test performance of databases, server side applications and native/browser based mobile applications.
Advanced reports: LoadRunner is best known for its very detailed reports which help a lot in analyzing the performance issues.
Available resources: Micro Focus provides dedicated support & knowledge base for LoadRunner to all licensed customers. Other than that, one can also find plenty of articles & video tutorials online on Micro Focus LoadRunner.
SMARTBEAR LOADUI:
LoadUI is a load testing tool which was introduced by SmartBear after success of famous web service functional testing tool called SoapUI. LoadUI works very well when used with SoapUI for performance testing of APIs and Web services. Following are some key points about LoadUI.
Free & Commercial version: LoadUI free version has all load testing options but reporting features are limited. LoadUI can be a good choice for those who want to start free of cost and later want to switch to paid version.
Platform compatibility: LoadUI can run from Windows operating system.
Supported applications: LoadUI can collect data from servers developed on top of any mainstream technology.
User friendly/Interactive features: LoadUI stands out in rest of performance tools because it has features which give a very interactive experience. Test engineer can create, configure and modify tests during the execution. Reports can be examined and analyzed as the scripts/data is changed. This enables tester to understand and trace the real performance issues.
Visual reports: LoadUI Pro presents reports in a very easy to understand graphical format. LoadUI free version has very limited reporting features providing only the basic reports.
Available resources: LoadUI team has put in a special effort to create video tutorials, blogs, and articles that can be really helpful for learning LoadUI. Sample LoadUI projects are also available on SmartBear website; that can be explored by anyone for practical understanding.
IBM RATIONAL PERFORMANCE TESTER:
Rational Performance Tester is a performance testing solution developed by IBM. Rational Performance Tester is a commercial product just like HP LoadRunner. It is often used to test enterprise level applications like SAP, Oracle etc. Following are some major points related to IBM Rational Performance tester.
Commercial tool: IBM Rational Performance tester is a commercial product with very high license cost. Because of its expensive price tag it is mostly acquired by enterprises having complex performance testing requirements which cannot be fulfilled by open source or low cost performance tools.
Platform compatibility: IBM Rational performance tester can run on Windows, Mac and Linux AIX.
Supported applications: IBM RPT supports majority of applications/protocols including Web HTTP, SAP, Oracle, SOA, Citrix, Siebel and TCP. Support for additional protocols can be added by using IBM Rational Performance Tester Extensibility Software Development Kit (SDK).
Infrastructure requirements: IBM Rational performance tester has complex infrastructure requirements. Highly skilled and specialized resources are required to setup the test environment.
Code-free scripts: Rational performance tester gives ability to create code-free scripts that can be generated by recording test flows. These test recordings can also be viewed in form of rendered HTML. For advanced and customized actions, java code can be inserted anywhere in the script.
Available resources: IBM provides dedicated support to its licensed customers. But other than that availability of help material is quite little, if compared to other famous tools like JMeter & LoadRunner.
Kinsta APM
Need a hassle-free performance monitoring solution for your WordPress website? Try Kinsta APM. It’s designed to let you find and resolve performance issues on your Kinsta-hosted sites. With a simple and easy-to-use UI, Kinsta APM is for everyone, whether they’re beginners to experts. Plus, it’s available in 10 languages under MyKinsta.
Kinsta APM provides insights on slow PHP transactions, external requests, MySQL queries, and more. You can debug database queries, non-optimized themes or plugins, and longer API calls and external URL requests, along with identifying slowest, median, and average transactions.
It’s helpful for everyone, from agencies and ecommerce site owners to developers, by helping them find and troubleshoot performance issues quickly while reducing their expenditure on costly APM tools.
Features and Benefits:
- Customer support team: With over ten years of experience, Kinsta’s seasoned customer support team will resolve all your site issues with 24/7 availability and a 100% solve rate. You can chat with them directly through MyKinsta and get instant replies.
- Pricing: The tool is free for every website that Kinsta hosts, no matter what plan you’ve chosen. You can also book a live demo to test the performance yourself.
LoadNinja
Create your load tests and run them quickly using LoadNinja by SmartBear. It helps you diagnose app performance issues with highly accurate and actionable data. It provides results that are easy to read and doesn’t need extensive programming.
This tool helps product teams, testers, and engineers focus on building their software that scales while spending less time creating test scripts.
LoadNinja allows you to record client-side interactions, identify performance issues quickly, and debug in real-time without sacrificing test quality by eliminating script scrubbing, translation, and dynamic correlation efforts. With its TrueLoad technology, it’ll also let you test the actual end-user experience on multiple browsers to save more than 60% of your effort. It is highly efficient and precise in recording load tests, and it replays them instantly with no coding needed.
Analyze software performance data such as strep times, asynchronous calls, processed resources, navigation timings on your web interface, and diagnose issues using a machine learning assistant.
Perform continuous software performance testing, move faster with quality and test coverage, and automate the tests. It requires no setup or maintenance as the service is cloud-based.
Note: SmartBear offered a similar offering previously called LoadComplete. While it’s still available to use, it hasn’t been updated since 2019. We recommend you avoid it.
Features and Benefits
- Integration: Automated tests by using their custom CI/CD plugins or REST API.
- Customer Support: You can reach out to the LoadNinja user community to find answers or go through their comprehensive documentation and FAQs.
- Pricing: The entry price of this tool is $1,439/year for 100 virtual users and 100 load hours.
Loadero
Loadero is a cloud-based performance and load testing tool that allows you to create faster performance tests and find system issues efficiently.
You can use Selenium, write test scripts in Java, JavaScript, or Python to conduct large-scale load testing or performance tests, and record web sessions for performing debugging. Configure the test by adding test users, groping, browser, location, counterfeit data feeds, network conditions, and more.
Loadero lets you set up multiple network settings and test your software in different network conditions. The cloud infrastructure of Loadero offers better scalability without letting you worry about maintenance.
This performance testing tool also helps you detect system limitations with comprehensive performance test reports, machine statistics, load times, screenshots, and recordings. In addition, Loadero features built-in validations to execute assertions automatically after the completion of the test run.
Features and Benefits
- Browser support: Loadero supports the five latest Google Chrome versions along with Mozilla Firefox.
- Reusable test codes: It lets you utilize the existing test setup to run load testing.
- Fake media: You can incorporate artificial media feed and simulate microphone and webcam inputs.
- Worldwide coverage: Perform tests from any of their 12 global locations.
- Pricing: It costs $250/month under the pay-as-you-go model.
SmartMeter.io
If you’re looking for an enterprise-level performance testing tool, then SmartMeter is a good option. It has best-in-class functionality and features, and it’s available at affordable rates. This tool helps you create test cases with ease using the embedded browser.
You can easily add testing into the continuous integration procedure by analyzing the acceptance parameters like maximum response time, errors, and throughput to automatically determine the test success.
SmartMeter provides you with advanced, in-depth reports, live test results with graph comparisons, trend analysis, etc., to fine-tune the software performance.
Features and Benefits
- Compatibility with JMeter: SmartMeter is compatible with JMeter to offer you all the features you love in this tool and perfect your tests.
- Distributed load testing: Create innumerable virtual users out of different global locations using load generators.
- Pricing: Starts at $39/month.
StormForge
StormForge allows you to perform load testing of your apps for performance and scalability automated right into CI/CD workflow at an affordable cost. It helps you increase the application uptime, throughput, decrease latency and application errors, and scale to more users.
The tool brings all these capabilities in fewer resources, involving no manual process, offering environmental sustainability, and helps you reduce your monthly bills on the cloud. You can capture actual production traffic and ensure the test delivers authentic traffic patterns.
It works in an open-workload model, simulates real-world scenarios accurately, and provides better error detection problems.
StormForge also lets you minimize issues and improve the end-user experience by ensuring app performance under load and meeting SLAs. It offers extensive analytics and reports to help interpret, benchmark, and compare results easily.
Features and Benefits
- Repeatable: Use Performance Testing as Code on your CI/CD pipeline.
- Cloud-native: Works well on Kubernetes.
- Supported programming languages: It includes Java, Nginx, Go, and Python.
- Integration: It integrates flawlessly with your ecosystem like cloud providers (AWS, DigitalOcean, GCP, IBM, Azure), monitoring tools (Prometheus, Dynatrace, Datadog, New Relic, and Circonus), DevOps tools (Jenkins, Puppet, Chef, and Rancher Labs).
- Pricing: There’s a free tier available for three tests/month, while paid plans start at $150/month per app.
Conclusion
Testing the performance of a website, software or application is the art of measuring the output against the requirements to ensure that it meets customer requirements.