As a .Net Software tester, you need to know about performance testing tools for .net Web applications. So, let’s discuss 10+ best free & open source performance testing tools for web applications & desktop applications that are widely used by .Net software testers & developers worldwide.
Below, I have listed out tools that will be beneficial to you!
LoadUI
The next open source stress test and web performance testing tool in this list is LoadUI, yet again for measuring the performance of a web application. The tool works pretty well when it is integrated with the soapUI functional testing tool. It is one of the most interactive and flexible testing tools too, allowing you to create, update and configure your tests while the application is tested. It gives a visual aid too for the user with a drag and drop feature.
LoadUI is far from a static performance tool. It offers advanced report generating and analysis generating features that let you examine the actual performance of the web application by adding new data even as the application is being tested. You do not have to restart the tool every time that you change or modify the application. LoadUI gets updated automatically in the interface. It is a cross-platform tool, so it should work for any major operating system. It is also available for free, given that it is open system.
WAPT
This particular web performance testing tool can be used for intranet applications and websites. WAPT is short for Web Application Performance Tool, and it acts as a scale or analyzing tool for measuring the output and performance of a web application and related interface. The tools help measure the performance of any web-related interface, web service or web application. You can use this tool to test the application performance in different environments and load conditions. The tool provides detailed information on the virtual users and its output to the users during load testing. It is considered by many to be one of the best and most cost-effective tools for analyzing the performance of web services. The WAPT tool can also test the compatibility of a web application with operating systems and browsers. It can be used for testing the compatibility with Windows applications in certain cases. However, the tool only works on Windows operating systems.
Loadster
Loadster is an advanced desktop-based HTTP load testing and web performance testing tool. It uses the web browser to record scripts that are easy to record and use. The graphical user interface of the tool can be used to modify the basic script with dynamic variables for validating the response. If you have control over the network bandwidth, you can also simulate a large virtual user base to conduct stress tests on your application. Once the test is completed, a HTML report is generated for you to analyze. Loadster is particularly useful in identifying bottlenecks in web applications. It works on Windows 7, Vista and XP systems.
LoadImpact
LoadImpact is a load testing and online web performance testing tool with a difference. It is generally used in cloud-based services. This can also help in website optimization and improving your web application’s functioning. The tool creates traffic to the website or application by simulating users. It uses this to identify the stress on the application and website and find out the maximum load that it can work under.
LoadImpact has two major elements. The first is the load testing tool itself, and the second is the page analyzer. The load testing tool can be divided into three types as well: Timeout, Ramp up and Fixed. Meanwhile, the page analyzer works in a way similar to a web browser, giving important information on the working and statistics of the website being tested.
The tool was developed by Gatorhole in Sweden. It is a freemium service, which means that it is available in free and paid versions. The free version, as you may have guessed, is more basic and bare-bones. The paid version comes with more features and options. The tool works on Linux and Windows systems.
Testing Anywhere
An automated testing tool, Test Anywhere can be deployed for the testing of web applications, websites and other online objects. A lot of testers and developers use this web performance testing free tools to identify bottlenecks in their web application, service or site and solve the issues accordingly.
The tool is pretty powerful; it can automatically test any application and comes with an inbuilt editor that allows users to edit the testing criteria to fit their requirements. There are basically five steps for creating a test on this tool. They are object recorder, SMART test recorder, advanced recorder, editor and image recognition.
Testing Anywhere was first developed by Automation Anywhere Inc., based in San Jose, California in the US. Today, there are several thousand users of the product. The tool is compatible with all Windows operating systems.
Apache JMeter
Apache JMeter is an open source, cross-platform Apache project that is developed to analyze and measure software application performance. Apache JMeter, first released in 1998, is one of the oldest open source load testing tools. The current version of Apache JMeter is 3.0, released on March 17, 2016.
Apache JMeter is an open source, cross-platform Java application that can run on Linux, Mac, and PCs. JMeter can be used to test the performance of both, static and dynamic, web pages and resources including Web services, PHP, ASP.NET, Java, database, and queries. It can be used to simulate a heavy load on a server, group of servers, network, or object to test its strength or to analyze the overall performance under different load types. You can use it to make a graphical analysis of performance or to test your server/script/object behavior under heavy concurrent load. Features include
- Ability to load and performance test many different server/protocol types
- Complete portability and 100 percent Java purity.
- Full multithreading framework allows concurrent sampling by many threads and simultaneous sampling of different functions by separate thread groups.
- Careful GUI design allows faster Test Plan building and debugging.
- Caching and offline analysis/replaying of the test results.
- Highly Extensible core
NeoLoad
NeoLoad, developed by Neotys, claims to be one of the fastest, most automated performance testing solutions on the planet.
NeoLoad comes in four different versions: Free, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. The free version supports 50 virtual users with an unlimited number of tests. Detailed pricing of NeoLoad is listed here NeoLoad.
The current version of NeoLoad 5.2 is available now. Some of the key features of NeoLoad, as mentioned on the website, are the following.
Fast. Realistic. Powerful.
NeoLoad load and performance testing solution realistically simulates user activity and monitors infrastructure behavior so you can eliminate bottlenecks in all your web and mobile applications.
Fast and Automated
Using the scriptless GUI and a host of automation features, NeoLoad lets you design tests 5-10x faster and maintain scripts in as little as 10 percent of the original design time while helping you automate testing with your Continuous Integration system so you’re as agile as your development teams need you to be.
Supports the Latest Web and Mobile Technologies
With unparalleled support for WebSocket, HTTP/2, GWT, HTML 5, adaptive bitrate streaming and many more technologies, NeoLoad provides a full performance testing tool box for web and mobile apps so that you can fully test the technologies your apps have today and be ready for anything your dev team might use tomorrow.
Unmatched Test Realism
Capabilities to help you create real world testing scenarios so you catch performance problems early, before they show up in production.
- Complex application behavior replay
- Real device mobile app recording
- Network virtualization
- Real device/ browser metrics under load
Cloud and In-house Testing
Generating load on your on own infrastructure or on-demand from the cloud is easy with the fully integrated Neotys Cloud Platform. Pick from several locations around the globe and from multiple cloud providers through a single interface for geo-realistic tests and pay-as-you-go licensing.
Additional Info
ASP.NET Core load/stress testing
Load testing and stress testing are important to ensure a web app is performant and scalable. Their goals are different even though they often share similar tests.
Load tests: Test whether the app can handle a specified load of users for a certain scenario while still satisfying the response goal. The app is run under normal conditions.
Stress tests: Test app stability when running under extreme conditions, often for a long period of time. The tests place high user load, either spikes or gradually increasing load, on the app, or they limit the app’s computing resources.
Stress tests determine if an app under stress can recover from failure and gracefully return to expected behavior. Under stress, the app isn’t run under normal conditions.
Visual Studio 2019 announced plans to deprecate the load testing. The corresponding Azure DevOps cloud-based load testing service has been closed.
Third-party tools
The following list contains third-party web performance tools with various feature sets:
Load and stress test with release builds
Load and stress tests should be done in release and production mode and not in debug and development mode. Release configurations are fully optimized with minimal logging. Debug configuration is not optimized. Development mode enables more information logging that can impact performance.
Recommended content
- ASP.NET Core Performance Best PracticesTips for increasing performance in ASP.NET Core apps and avoiding common performance problems.
- Distributed caching in ASP.NET CoreLearn how to use an ASP.NET Core distributed cache to improve app performance and scalability, especially in a cloud or server farm environment.
- Health checks in ASP.NET CoreLearn how to set up health checks for ASP.NET Core infrastructure, such as apps and databases.
- Memory management and patterns in ASP.NET CoreLearn how memory is managed in ASP.NET Core and how the garbage collector (GC) works.
Conclusion
There are many WordPress plugins that help you with performance testing. There are also advanced server based load testing tools like Gatling, Grinder, JMeter, etc… But if you are looking for something, quick and simple to begin with, here is list of some awesome tools that will perform basic site/web application testings on your WordPress website or ASP.net application.