Web Application performance testing tools is the one of the important steps to get your application/web site which is used by many users and determine how it performs and how many concurrent users will be served by this web site.
Below, you will find necessary tools for your web applications performance test.
KeyCDN Website Speed Test
KeyCDN built a fast and lightweight Website Speed Test tool that you can use to get detailed insights on how your website performs. It offers 10 locations to choose from around the globe, and you have the option of making your test results private or public. The test includes a waterfall breakdown and a visual website preview at the bottom. You can quickly see how many HTTP requests were made, the full size of the page requested, and the load time.
It is also one of the only tools besides PageSpeed that is responsive and works great on mobile devices.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights is a website speed test tool that grades your website on a scale of 1 – 100. The higher the number the better optimized your site is. Anything above an 85 indicates that your website is performing well. PageSpeed gives you reports for both the desktop and mobile versions of your site. You can view recommendations for improvements such as you need to minify CSS or optimize your images.
PageSpeed Insights measures how the page can improve its performance on:
- Time to above-the-fold load: Elapsed time from the moment a user requests a new page and to the moment the above-the-fold content is rendered by the browser.
- Time to full page load: Elapsed time from the moment a user requests a new page to the moment the page is fully rendered by the browser.
A mobile report includes an extra category called “User Experience” that is included in the scoring of your site. This includes checking your viewport configuration, size of your tap targets (buttons and links), and also eligible font sizes.
The PageSpeed Insights team also created a website speed test tool on think with Google which you might want to check out. One nice feature is the beautiful reports that it generates. Can be great for sending to clients.
Solarwinds Pingdom Speed Test
Pingdom is probably one of the more well-known website speed test tools. Their reports are divided into four different sections which include a waterfall breakdown, performance grade, page analysis, and history.
The page analysis offers a great overview with additional information such as a size analysis, size per domain (you can easily compare your CDN assets size vs your domain), the number of requests per domain, and what type of content had the most requests.
Pingdom’s speed test tool also allows you to test your website’s speed from more than 70 different locations.
The results of a Pingdom speed test provide you with performance insights, similar to Google PagesSpeed Insights, which outline where you can make improvements. The results also break down the page size by content type, page size by domain, requests by content type, and requests by domain.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix goes into great detail assigning your site a grade from F to A. It’s reports are divided into five different sections including metrics pulled from Google’s Lighthouse tool, waterfall breakdown, video, and history.
With a free registration, you can test from several different locations. They also let you choose between Chrome and Firefox. You can test and compare website performance against various connection types (like Cable vs dial-up) to see how it affects your page loads. Other advanced features include a video playback to analyze where your bottleneck is occurring and also the ability to run Adblock Plus. It is recommended to make a free account as you will get additional options, such as those mentioned above.
As of 2020, GTmetrix replaced its YSlow and PageSpeed metrics with tabulated data from Google’s Lighthouse Tool. Lighthouse is generally considered the golden standard for modern web performance improvement. You’ll need to make a Google account, but most of the features are free.
If you make a living off of running a site, you may want to dive into GTmetrix’s premium features. Depending on the tier of account chosen, you can utilize their API, monitor a set number of URLs at set intervals, and have a certain amount of daily calls reserved for you.
WebPageTest
WebPageTest is very similar to some of the previous tools mentioned but has over 40 locations to choose from and over 25 browsers (including mobile). It assigns you a grade from F to A based on different performance tests such as FTTB, compression, caching, effective use of a CDN, etc. Its report is divided into six sections which include a summary, details, performance review, content breakdown, and screenshots.
It also offers a unique approach on the test. It runs what they call a first view and a repeat view. This helps to diagnose what may be a first time DNS lookup delay as mentioned earlier. WebPageTest has more advanced features as well such as video capture, disabling JavaScript, ignoring SSL certificates, and spoofing user agent strings.
Uptrends
Uptrends offers up to 226 locations to choose from when running your speed test. You can choose to test with a desktop or mobile device. You can even select screen size and whether to throttle the virtual connection speed. This used to be quite a basic site, but they’ve upped their offerings. Their report is broken up into two sections, a waterfall breakdown and domain groups. The domain groups offer a unique perspective as it categorizes the resources into different sources.
dotcom-monitor
dotcom-monitor offers 25 different locations and multiple options in which you can run your website speed test. Their unique feature is that you can run all geographical tests simultaneously. This can save you a lot of time, as every other tool you have to run them individually per location. You can then click into each individual report and or waterfall breakdown.
Their reports are divided into multiple sections, which includes a summary, performance, waterfall chart (breakdown), host, and errors.
Yellow Lab Tools
Yellow Lab Tools is a newer web performance and frontend quality testing tool developed by Gaël Métais. This tool gives you a lot of information and some unique features not seen in other tools such as a view of when JavaScript interactions with the DOM during the loading of the page and other code validation issues. Get a global score based on the following qualifiers.
- Page weight
- Requests
- DOM
- Bad JavaScript
- Bad CSS
- Server config
Google Chrome DevTools
And of course we can’t forget Google Chrome DevTools. It is a very easy to use tool (with advanced features) and you can quickly launch it at any time in your Chrome browser using the following shortcut keys.
- Windows:
F12or alsoCtrl + Shift + I - Mac:
Cmd + Opt + I
The performance feature allows you to easily see what is costing you the most time and resources. The performance details can be broken down in many different ways, such as the time, activity, and source. In the “Performance” panel press Ctrl + E (Cmd + E) and then Ctrl + R (Cmd + R) to refresh the page. Record the amount of time that you want to be monitored. You can then click Stop and evaluate the results.
We also have a great post on what is blocking the DOM and how to fix it. In the developer tools, you can see exactly the DOMContentLoaded time and the total load time. To run this click into the “Network” panel, click on the “Show Overview” option and press Ctrl + R (Cmd + R) to refresh the page. A blue line will show up for DOMContentLoaded and a red line for total load time. Normally everything that is left of or touching the blue line are assets that are blocking the DOM, or also referred to as render blocking resources.
Website speed test with Chrome extensions
There are quite a few free Chrome extensions in which you can analyze website speed. Here are a couple of them. You can easily launch them from right within your browser.
- Page Load Time
- app.telemetry Page Speed Monitor
- Performance-Analyser
- Load Testing In the Cloud from LoadFocus.com
Mobile website speed test
If you are needing to run a mobile website speed test a couple of the tools we mentioned above do include this:
- WebPageTest
- GTmetrix
- dotcom-monitor
KeyCDN Website Speed Test
KeyCDN built a fast and lightweight Website Speed Test tool that you can use to get detailed insights on how your website performs. It offers 10 locations to choose from around the globe, and you have the option of making your test results private or public. The test includes a waterfall breakdown and a visual website preview at the bottom. You can quickly see how many HTTP requests were made, the full size of the page requested, and the load time.
It is also one of the only tools besides PageSpeed that is responsive and works great on mobile devices.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights is a website speed test tool that grades your website on a scale of 1 – 100. The higher the number the better optimized your site is. Anything above an 85 indicates that your website is performing well. PageSpeed gives you reports for both the desktop and mobile versions of your site. You can view recommendations for improvements such as you need to minify CSS or optimize your images.
PageSpeed Insights measures how the page can improve its performance on:
- Time to above-the-fold load: Elapsed time from the moment a user requests a new page and to the moment the above-the-fold content is rendered by the browser.
- Time to full page load: Elapsed time from the moment a user requests a new page to the moment the page is fully rendered by the browser.
A mobile report includes an extra category called “User Experience” that is included in the scoring of your site. This includes checking your viewport configuration, size of your tap targets (buttons and links), and also eligible font sizes.
The PageSpeed Insights team also created a website speed test tool on think with Google which you might want to check out. One nice feature is the beautiful reports that it generates. Can be great for sending to clients.
Solarwinds Pingdom Speed Test
Pingdom is probably one of the more well-known website speed test tools. Their reports are divided into four different sections which include a waterfall breakdown, performance grade, page analysis, and history.
The page analysis offers a great overview with additional information such as a size analysis, size per domain (you can easily compare your CDN assets size vs your domain), the number of requests per domain, and what type of content had the most requests.
Pingdom’s speed test tool also allows you to test your website’s speed from more than 70 different locations.
The results of a Pingdom speed test provide you with performance insights, similar to Google PagesSpeed Insights, which outline where you can make improvements. The results also break down the page size by content type, page size by domain, requests by content type, and requests by domain.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix goes into great detail assigning your site a grade from F to A. It’s reports are divided into five different sections including metrics pulled from Google’s Lighthouse tool, waterfall breakdown, video, and history.
With a free registration, you can test from several different locations. They also let you choose between Chrome and Firefox. You can test and compare website performance against various connection types (like Cable vs dial-up) to see how it affects your page loads. Other advanced features include a video playback to analyze where your bottleneck is occurring and also the ability to run Adblock Plus. It is recommended to make a free account as you will get additional options, such as those mentioned above.
As of 2020, GTmetrix replaced its YSlow and PageSpeed metrics with tabulated data from Google’s Lighthouse Tool. Lighthouse is generally considered the golden standard for modern web performance improvement. You’ll need to make a Google account, but most of the features are free.
If you make a living off of running a site, you may want to dive into GTmetrix’s premium features. Depending on the tier of account chosen, you can utilize their API, monitor a set number of URLs at set intervals, and have a certain amount of daily calls reserved for you.
WebPageTest
WebPageTest is very similar to some of the previous tools mentioned but has over 40 locations to choose from and over 25 browsers (including mobile). It assigns you a grade from F to A based on different performance tests such as FTTB, compression, caching, effective use of a CDN, etc. Its report is divided into six sections which include a summary, details, performance review, content breakdown, and screenshots.
It also offers a unique approach on the test. It runs what they call a first view and a repeat view. This helps to diagnose what may be a first time DNS lookup delay as mentioned earlier. WebPageTest has more advanced features as well such as video capture, disabling JavaScript, ignoring SSL certificates, and spoofing user agent strings.
Uptrends
Uptrends offers up to 226 locations to choose from when running your speed test. You can choose to test with a desktop or mobile device. You can even select screen size and whether to throttle the virtual connection speed. This used to be quite a basic site, but they’ve upped their offerings. Their report is broken up into two sections, a waterfall breakdown and domain groups. The domain groups offer a unique perspective as it categorizes the resources into different sources.
dotcom-monitor
dotcom-monitor offers 25 different locations and multiple options in which you can run your website speed test. Their unique feature is that you can run all geographical tests simultaneously. This can save you a lot of time, as every other tool you have to run them individually per location. You can then click into each individual report and or waterfall breakdown.
Their reports are divided into multiple sections, which includes a summary, performance, waterfall chart (breakdown), host, and errors.
Yellow Lab Tools
Yellow Lab Tools is a newer web performance and frontend quality testing tool developed by Gaël Métais. This tool gives you a lot of information and some unique features not seen in other tools such as a view of when JavaScript interactions with the DOM during the loading of the page and other code validation issues. Get a global score based on the following qualifiers.
- Page weight
- Requests
- DOM
- Bad JavaScript
- Bad CSS
- Server config
Google Chrome DevTools
And of course we can’t forget Google Chrome DevTools. It is a very easy to use tool (with advanced features) and you can quickly launch it at any time in your Chrome browser using the following shortcut keys.
- Windows:
F12or alsoCtrl + Shift + I - Mac:
Cmd + Opt + I
The performance feature allows you to easily see what is costing you the most time and resources. The performance details can be broken down in many different ways, such as the time, activity, and source. In the “Performance” panel press Ctrl + E (Cmd + E) and then Ctrl + R (Cmd + R) to refresh the page. Record the amount of time that you want to be monitored. You can then click Stop and evaluate the results.
We also have a great post on what is blocking the DOM and how to fix it. In the developer tools, you can see exactly the DOMContentLoaded time and the total load time. To run this click into the “Network” panel, click on the “Show Overview” option and press Ctrl + R (Cmd + R) to refresh the page. A blue line will show up for DOMContentLoaded and a red line for total load time. Normally everything that is left of or touching the blue line are assets that are blocking the DOM, or also referred to as render blocking resource
Website speed test with Chrome extensions
There are quite a few free Chrome extensions in which you can analyze website speed. Here are a couple of them. You can easily launch them from right within your browser.
- Page Load Time
- app.telemetry Page Speed Monitor
- Performance-Analyser
- Load Testing In the Cloud from LoadFocus.com
Mobile website speed test
If you are needing to run a mobile website speed test a couple of the tools we mentioned above do include this:
- WebPageTest
- GTmetrix
- dotcom-monitor
Conclusion
A number of different testing tools can be used to help determine whether a website or application is providing a high-quality experience to the intended audience. In this article, we’ll focus on three different kinds of performance testing: load testing, user interface (UI) testing, and API testing. The first two kinds of performance testing are used to test the external view of an application; API performance testing helps you validate how an application’s external components are interacting with its internal components.