When it comes to performance testing, too many software companies think that free tools that only give a small sliver of data are going to be enough. But as a performance tester, these types of tools can do more harm than good. So what are the best performance testing tools?
In this post, we’ll look at several different types of free testing tools and review them from start to finish so you have a better understanding of all the different tools out there.
ReadyAPI Performance
SmartBear offers an all-in-one automated API Testing Platform called ReadyAPI. It contains various tools like Swagger & SwaggerHub, SoapUI NG, ReadyAPI Performance, Secure Pro, ServiceV, and AlertSite.
ReadyAPI Performance is an API tool for load testing. This API testing tool will assure you that your APIs can perform anywhere. It will let you install load agents on any server or cloud as well as on-premise. It provides advanced performance metrics for load test runs.
SoapUI NG is a tool for functional testing and you can use these functional testing use cases designed in the SOAPUI for performance testing.
This load testing tool will help you with testing the speed, scalability, and performance of the APIs, Servers, and Network Resources. It has features of flexible load generation, parallel API load tests, server monitoring, and pre-built load templates.=> Visit ReadyAPI Performance Website
RADVIEW
The most flexible and cost effective performance testing software solution for enterprise load, performance, and stress testing.
- Test Creation
- Correlation
- Test Execution
- Analytics
- WebLOAD Dashboard
- Server-side performance
- JavaScript
- Mobile Load Testing
- Technologies Supported
LOADNINJA
The only load testing tool to record, replay, and test in real browsers at scale. Performance testing doesn’t have to be the bottleneck. Cut your load testing time in half by running website performance tests in real browsers at scale. LoadNinja is the only load testing tool to record and replay scripts in minutes, leverage real browsers, and deliver actionable website performance data straight from the browser’s DOM.
Features:
- Reduce Test Script Creation Time by 60%
- Generate Load with 1000s of Real Browsers
- Analyze in Real-Time with VU Inspector and Debugger
- Maximize Test Coverage and Minimize Test Time with Load Test Automation
- Data-Driven Load Tests
- Test Applications in Local Network
SMARTMETER
Performance Testing with Enterprise-Level Features with a familiar jMeter interface.
- Easy-to-use test scenario recorder
- Distributed load testing
- Continuous integration support & test acceptance criteria
- Real time test results on multiple monitors
- Combine load tests with Selenium
- Test environment, monitoring
LOADVIEW-TESTING
Load testing is generating user demand on software or servers to measure response time. Stress test websites, web apps & API with performance testing tools.
- 100% Managed Cloud
- On-Demand Load Tests
- Real Browser Testing
Google PageSpeed Insight
Google PageSpeed Insight is an excellent free page speed testing tool.
Once you insert the URL of the page you want to check, it gives you an overall score for page speed. Based on that score, it tells you whether the web page is fast, average, or slow. There are two different scores you can earn – one based on the website’s mobile performance and the other on its desktop performance. Most importantly, the tool provides advice on how to optimize response time.
GTMetrix
GTmetrix is an online application for testing web page speed. It offers free insight into page performance without a fee or even registration. Just visit the website, copy the URL of the page you wish to analyze and see the results. If you need more detailed monitoring, create a free account, or sign up for the paid version.
The results include performance scores, represented by grades from A to F for page speed and YSlow (a tool that tells you why your page is slow). Also, GTmetrix provides page details like page load time, its totals size, and the number of requests.
Site 24×7
Site 24×7 is an alternative to Pingdom that offers a free version, along with small or premium plans.
This budget-friendly tool provides website, network, server, and application monitoring. User feedback for real user monitoring is also included. You can use it on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X. The paid plan covers five complete server monitors and 50 alerts per month. The free version is limited to 5 server uptime monitors and ten alerts per month.
WebPage Test
WebPageTest is a free testing tool that runs speed tests from multiple locations around the world.
It takes into account the type of browser, device, connection speed, and cache state the user has to obtain concrete results. It offers advanced and straightforward testing, a visual comparison, and traceroute examination.
Advanced testing allows you to decide on the number of tests you want to run, get first and repeat view of the web page and capture of a video of the visual progress of loading.
Varvy Pagespeed Optimization
Varvy Pagespeed Optimization is a free, online tool used for optimizing speed.
After entering the web page URL, it gives you a summary and a 5-part report. The report examines your resources, CSS delivery, JavaScript usage, services, and page speed issues. Varvy has a useful selection of resource articles and tutorials to help you improve performance. The tool also has an entire section dedicated to SEO and mobile optimization guides.
Pingdom
Pingdom is one of the best performance monitoring services for business.
It provides web performance monitoring and uptime alerts by the minute. The tool gives an in-depth insight into page speed and performance expectations with SMS or email notifications. However, it does not have a free version. If you are unsure whether to commit to a subscription, try using its free 14-day trial.
Uptime
Uptime is a monitoring tool for websites, servers, and domains. It offers software for server monitoring, page speed monitoring, real user monitoring, and other services.
It has four different plans to choose from, none of which are free. What stands out is its 1-minute interval monitoring across six continents. The basic plan includes only 20 checks, while the Enterprise plan offers up to 500 checks. The platform offers a 21-day free trial. Use it to test out the tool and decide whether it is a good investment for your business.
JMeter
The Apache JMeter application is open source software. It is a pure Java application designed to load test an application and measure its performance. Read More »
Gatling
Gatling is a highly capable load testing tool. It is designed for ease of use, maintainability and high performance. Read More »
Locust
Locust is an easy-to-use, distributed, user load testing tool. It is intended for load-testing websites (or other systems) and figuring out how many concurrent users a system can handle. Read More »
Tsung
Tsung is an open-source multi-protocol distributed load testing tool. It can be used to stress HTTP, WebDAV, SOAP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, LDAP, MQTT, and Jabber/XMPP servers. Read More »
Siege
Siege is an HTTP load testing and benchmarking utility. Siege supports basic authentication, cookies, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols. It lets its user hit a server with a configurable number of simulated clients. Read More »
Httperf
Httperf is a tool for measuring web server performance. It provides a flexible facility for generating various HTTP workloads and for measuring server performance. Read More »
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 »
Conclusion
As load testing tools are used to analyze the performance of your application or website. When websites suffer from poor performance it can have a detrimental effect on conversions which are key KPI’s for business owners. Companies keep coming up with newer technologies so users can have an amazing experience. But not all technologies can be handled by our current internet infrastructure, this is where speed testing tools come into the picture.