Performance testing is an integral part of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). It is a process of evaluating the performance and reliability of a software solution under different workloads, scenarios and conditions. There are several tools available on the market that enable you to evaluate the performance of any software project – from client side or web applications, to mobile apps. Also, some important performance test tools for this year – Top 10 Performance Testing Tools 2022
As a performance tester, you probably know that it’s easy to run tests and collect data related to the performance of your application. The term “quality assurance” for web application performance implies that all the testing and information about it has to be of high quality. My goal with compiling this list is to help you find some valuable tools in order to get faster and cleaner results from your performance testing sessions.
Load Testing Tools Comparison Criteria
What are we looking for when we select network stress test tools for review? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Is it clean and attractive?
- Usability: Is it easy to learn and master? Does the company offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training?
- Features & Functionality:
- Realistic user simulation – Does the tool accurately reflect real-life user and load actions?
- Scripting language – Does the tool work with different scripting languages?
- Device testing variety – Can the tool test both mobile- and web-based apps?
- Reporting and analytics – Are the reporting tools robust, customizable, flexible, and visually appealing? Can they be exported into different, popular file types for review?
- Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Any pre-built integrations?
- Value for $: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent and flexible?
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Overviews Of The Load Testing Software
Here’s a brief description of each of the website testing that is featured on this top 10 list.
1. LoadNinja – Best for load testing with real browsers at scale
LoadNinja helps users diagnose web and API performance issues. It is simpler to use than conventional load testing tools and uses real browsers, which delivers a more accurate representation of load.
Creating performance tests via record and playback enhanced with AI can save around 60% of time vs traditional tools, and also reduces time maintaining tests as the application changes. Using real browsers at scale to generate load gives you the most accurate representation of load. Test results reflect true end-user experience and allow you to quickly diagnose bottlenecks and performance issues. The tool was designed with ease of use in mind, and is accessible to users of all skill levels.
Tool costs starting from $239/month for 100 virtual users. They also offer a free 14-day trial.Visit Website
2. WAPT – Employs a universal performance test design approach by recording real-life web sessions from a browser or a mobile application
WAPT lets users design or run tests locally or in the cloud. Users are enabled to create tests using a browser or a mobile application; employ remote, distributed and cloud-based testing; launch server and database performance monitoring; and more.
Some of the most exemplary elements of the software are the usefulness of auto-parameterization of most dynamic values, the extensibility via Javascript, and point-and-click recording capabilities.
The WAPT interface, as seen from the associated screenshot, comes across quite dated in the color, look, feel, and even text orientation. For those used to modern tech UI, it may be a bit of an eyesore; thus, they lost a few points per the UX review criteria.
WAPT starts at $700 and has a free trial.Visit Website
3. WebLOAD – Test with powerful recording and scripting, correlation, drag-and-drop building blocks, parameterization, and response validation
WebLOAD generates a test script in JavaScript, with the flexibility to add a wide range of protocols and easily extend to additional protocols as needed. The recording is transparent and automatic with any web technology, including HTTP/HTTPS (SSL, TLS) and more.
This tool does particularly well with building any simulated load for load and performance testing in an intuitive and easy way. Additionally, the play and record features are useful for tracking results.
As the only tool with no pricing information available, WebLOAD lost some points in cost transparency, meaning their review results for Value for Cost dropped a bit.
WebLOAD offers pricing upon request and has a free trial.Visit Website
4. Neotys Neoload – Design code-less load performance test scripts for large, complex applications using a graphical user interface
Neotys Neoload helps to design, maintain and run performance tests as code and analyze results within continuous integration pipelines using pre-packaged plugins for CI/CD tools and the NeoLoad API. Easily set up testing resources as needed.
This tool has a clean, colorful, and strategically organized user interface that makes returning to the software for each task a pleasure. Thus, they scored well in the UX segment of the evaluation process.
One critique of this software to be wary of is that the charging mechanism on the cloud is not atomic in nature and has a dependency on a local machine. Additionally, the project gets harder to manage as the script grows.
Neotys Neoload starts at $6024/month and has a free 30-day trial.Visit Website
5. BlazeMeter – A shift-left testing platform for enterprises that need API, GUI functional & performance testing, mock services, and API monitoring
BlazeMeter allows for Selenium functional testing with no coding necessary. Simulate thousands or millions of virtual users from over 55 geo-locations, leveraging your favorite open source tools: Apache JMeter, Selenium, Gatling, Grinder, Locust and more.
This tool scores well in the Features – Reporting and Analytics segment of the evaluation criteria, as status report types and assertion types are very useful when creating test scripts. Reporting and graph features are very accurate, making them a key component of the software.
A downside of this tool is that Blazemeter does not integrate well or easily with Jmeter if you started with or intend to incorporate that tool at all.
BlazeMeter starts at $99/month and has a freemium version of the software.Visit Website
6. Load Impact – LoadImpact, soon to rebrand as k6 Cloud, is a cloud service used to load test the performance of websites, apps, and APIs
LoadImpact is a cloud service to load test the performance of websites, apps, and APIs that has specifically focused on API load testing in the new k6.io app, with a completely revamped Test Builder. Plus, they have an improved browser session recorder and an improved results page.
A standout component of this software is it’s easy to support of various ‘cl technologies’. Additionally, the reporting, graphs, and pictures are aesthetically pleasing and very readable.
This tool would benefit in some better help sections/training documents in order to outline the different components of the software and website. They lost a few marks in the evaluation for Usability but this certainly isn’t a deal-breaker, as many aspects of the tool are intuitive anyways.
Load Impact starts at $99/month and has a free trial.Visit Website
7. LoadFocus – No-code testing to find out how many users your website or API can handle; easily run tests within the browser from multiple locations
An easy and cost-effective way to test your websites, mobile and web applications, web services and APIs with features like load testing, website speed testing, mobile emulation, automated website testing, SEO/PWA/speed monitoring, and software consultancy services.
LoadFocus has a very reasonable price-per-month, scoring them favorably in the Value for Cost section of the evaluation review as far as paid load testing tools are concerned.
One weakness of the tool is that communication between the user and the LF team could be clearer and better implemented. For example, there have been some complaints about not receiving confirmation emails and other expected communication items.
LoadFocus starts at $22.60/month and has a free 14-day trial.Visit Website
9. NeoLoad
NeoLoad is a continuous performance testing tool to automate your application and API load testing. It provides intuitive design and maintenance of tests and offers realistic user behavior simulation.
It simplifies test creations with conditions, loops, and drag-and-drop controls with a robust codeless design. For advanced cases, you can use JavaScript. It uses a YAML-based format that is human readable and domain-specific.
NeoLoad also provides you with detailed reports after test completion, allows you to perform infrastructure monitoring, and you can also integrate APM to get better analysis and validate builds with automatic SLAs.
Features and Benefits
- Supported technologies: It supports web frameworks and protocols like HTML, Angular, HTTP/2, WebSocket, etc.; packaged apps like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, IBM, etc.
- Advanced correlation: Correlates dynamic parameters with automatic handling and detects app-specific parameters along with predefined rules like .Net, Siebel, JSF, etc.
- Integration: Integrates with DevOps tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, TeamCity, Git, etc.; SOAP/REST support, Selenium, Tricentis Tosca, Dynatrace, Azure, Jenkins, Git, etc.
- Pricing: Contact them for a customized plan.
10. LoadUI Pro
You can load test your SOAP and REST APIs, microservices, and databases using LoadUI Pro, which is part of SmartBear’s ReadyAPI offering. With it, you can check the scalability and speed of your APIs and preview their performance. It was released in 2011 and written in Java, Groovy, and JavaFX.
Its standard version is open source, but the Pro version is brought to you by SmartBear. Forget about maintenance or investing too much as LoadUI Pro is a fully cloud-based performance testing tool.
Apart from these capabilities, LoadUI Pro offers parallel load testing, endpoint load testing, isolated load testing, server monitoring, and much more. In addition, you can add more functionality at runtime using 3rd-party plugins.
Features and Benefits
- Compatibility: Works with Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.
- Test reusing: You can reuse functional tests that already exist in your pipelines to save time.
- Integration: Integrates with SoapUI, a tool for functional testing.
- Pricing: Starts at $4,999/year.
11. Silk Performer
Conduct powerful and realistic stress and load testing using Silk Performer for your mobile, web, and enterprise apps. It pinpoints issue causes and location and ensures that server and application uptimes during peak traffic.
Provide better user experience with design scripts that help uncover issues and use end-to-end diagnostics to detect, monitor, resolve, and isolate problems. It features customizable reports so you can generate graphs and reports and customize them based on your preference.
With Cloud scalability, you can simulate peak-load of any size effortlessly and test faster by reusing existing performance tests and run them in different scenarios without changing scripts.
Silk Performer has three components, namely, Performance Explorer, True Log Explorer, and Workbench. It offers built-in VPNs that allow you to test and resolve internet-based apps under heavy loads.
Other essential capabilities of Silk Performer include user-friendly parameterization and correlation, Agent Health Control, resource management, integrated server monitoring, version controls, and more.
Micro Focus also offers another project-based load and performance testing tool called LoadRunner. It tests applications and measures system performance and behavior under load. Simulating thousands of concurrent users, you can record and analyze application performance.
Features and Benefits
- Supported protocols: HTTPS, HTTP, HTML, SMTP, POP, TCP, IP, FTP, .NET, SOAP, XML, LDAP, and more.
- Global locations: Execute tests out of more than 50 international locations.
- Supported technologies: Google Cloud Platform, Azure, and AWS.
- Pricing: Contact them for a quote. A free trial is also available.
12. AppLoader
AppLoader by Automai is an automated performance tool without coding or installations on your app servers/VDI. This frontend tool lets you view actual app performance using bots that access your apps en masse using their desktop GUI.
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AppLoader frees you from protocol limitations and lets you test things you want. Create custom workflows with ease using canned scripts and log-in time and define workflows to fit your workload.
You can perform testing by building automated test cases in a minute, using the code-free scripts generated by the tool, playback and view the bot navigating the process, and then adding or editing logic to your cases anytime. The test processes involve multiple apps through access points, and you require no plugins or APIs.
View screenshots quickly when the test fails to detect the cause and resolve the issues. Plus, you can also see the overall performance metrics and ramp-up times in a single dashboard.
AppLoader offers easy maintenance, and you can reuse its existing components, sections, and scenarios; retake images, edit line actions if needed, and change script sections to meet application changes and upgrades.
Features and Benefits
- Robotic automation: With robotic automation for testing, you don’t have to install anything over your app servers or VDIs.
- User-friendly test scenarios: View scenario components at one glance and find actions, define transactions anytime, and more.
- Pricing: Tell them your requirements to get a quote. A free trial is available, along with a demo.
13. Gatling
Launched in 2012 and written in Scala, Gatling is an open source performance and load testing tool for web services, mainly applications. It lets you avoid crashes by anticipating crashes and slow response times, detect issues early to improve time to market, enhance user experience, and boost your business.
The code-link scripts of Gatling let you maintain test scenarios easily and automate them. It is built for continuous load tests and can integrate easily with your developmental pipeline. It also includes a web recorder.
Features and Benefits
- Readable DSL: Their domain-specific language (DSL) makes the reading of test scenarios easy for everyone.
- Analysis: Simulate thousands of user requests/second easily and achieve highly accurate metrics that you can view in a colorful and dynamic report.
- Pricing: Free.
Apart from an open source tool, Gatling also offers a commercial tool Gatling Frontline with advanced features and metrics for test automation and integration. Its on-premise plan costs $485/month, while the cloud plan starts from $3/hour
14. BlazeMeter
BlazeMeter is an enterprise-ready load testing tool founded in 2011 that allows you to perform shift testing. It was awarded Gartner peer insights Customers’ Choice 2020 for Software Test Automation.
Its intuitive UI allows you to create load tests or reuse existing scripts to run them within your continuous testing pipelines. You can simulate thousands of virtual users out of 56 global locations by leveraging their open source toolchain. In addition, you can also control arrival rates, hits/sec, and threads in real-time.
BlazeMeter provides you with detailed reports to view historical trends and improve your software performance. You get mock services to visualize your entire system, simulate slow network latency and slow responses to ensure software performance and quality.
Features and Benefits
- 360-degree API testing: Monitor APIs quickly with clarity on code health to ensure API call content and structure return data as expected.
- Integration: Integrates with Apache JMeter, Taurus, Gatling, Selenium, and more.
- Pricing: There’s a free plan available for 50 concurrent users and ten tests, while paid plans start at 99/month for 1000 simultaneous users and 200 tests/year.
15. Rational Performance Tester
As the name suggests, Rational Performance Tester by IBM is an automated performance testing tool for server-based and web-based applications. It validates the applications, detects performance bottlenecks, and helps reduce load testing.
Rational Performance Tester allows you to perform complete environment analysis by pinpointing slowdown causes for J2EE interfaces and apps using products of IBM Tivoli. This advanced testing tool lets you create test scripts with no coding to reduce complexity and save time. Plus, you can view test details by accessing the text editor.
You can perform root cause analysis with Rational Performance Tester to identify bottlenecks in the application tier and source code and trace activities from sequence diagrams and view resource statistics.
Features and Benefits
- Supported technologies: HTTP, SIP, SAP, Citrix, Siebel, TCP Socket, and more. The tool features a graphical test scheduler and provides automated data-relationship management.
- Real-time reporting: Get real-time throughput and performance reports, set configuration and filtering options, and see performance trends with detailed insights on response time and other aspects.
- Pricing: Contact them for a quote.
16. k6
Previously known as Load Impact, k6 is an open source SaaS and load testing tool for development teams to test their websites and APIs. It offers fail/pass behavior for effortless integration and automation into CI pipelines.
Their community has also developed converters and a browser recorder to facilitate test creation. k6 is a flexible, easy-to-use, and feature-rich CI tool. k6 lets you create faster tests and QAs with its test builder, converters (Postman, Swagger, and JMeter), and recorder. Plus, it offers extensive documentation with the best support.
k6 uses the same script for cloud and local tests, and the tests can mimic real-world cases. It also uses powerful scripting in ES6 JS, with no DSL or XML. The performance testing tool automates tests to ensure the application and infrastructure performance. In addition, you can configure SLOs in k6 scripts to check the software’s health.
Features and Benefits
- Supported protocols: HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, WebSocket, and more.
- Compatibility: Works with Mac OS, Linux, and Windows.
- Integration: Integrates with 20+ services, including Kafka, Azure, GraphQL, Grafana, Datadog, GitLab, CircleCI, GitHub, and more.
- Pricing: They offer a free trial for 50 tests while paid plans start at $59/month for 200 users and 1200 tests/year.
17. Eggplant
Increase end-user engagement by offering them scalable and responsive apps load testing with Eggplant. This load and performance testing tool is simple and provides actual and user-centric testing.
Eggplant exhibits excellent simulation capabilities. It simulates users virtually at both network protocol and application UI levels to completely understand UI impact. In addition to that, it is a highly extensible, open, and multi-protocol supported tool that helps you solve test challenges.
Features and Benefits
- Test controls: You can control tests easily while they are running.
- Effective analysis: Effective and real-time test analysis with reporting lets detect issues quickly and resolve them efficiently.
- Pricing: Try their demo and contact them for a quote.
Conclusion
Performance testing is an important part of the overall quality assurance process. Performance testing helps businesses understand how their websites perform under various loads, it also helps check if web applications are functioning as per design requirements. This article will provide you a list of top 10 performance test tools as we move into 2022.