Best Performance & Load Testing Tools: (Open Source & Paid)

1) LoadNinja

LoadNinja by SmartBear allows you to quickly create scriptless sophisticated load tests, reduce testing time by 50%, replace load emulators with real browsers, and get actionable, brower-based metrics, all at ninja speed. You can easily capture client-side interactions, debug in real time, and identify performance problems immediately. LoadNinja empowers teams to increase their test coverage without sacrificing quality by removing the tedious efforts of dynamic correlation, script translation, and script scrubbing. With LoadNinja, engineers, testers, and product teams can focus more on building apps that scale and less on building load-testing scripts. Features: Free Trial: 14-Days Free Trial

Scriptless load test creation & playback with InstaPlay recorder Real browser load test execution at scale VU Debugger – debug tests in real time VU Inspector – manage virtual user activity in real time. Hosted on the cloud, no server machine & upkeep required Sophisticated browser-based metrics with analytics and reporting features

Protocols:

HTTP, HTTPS, SAP GUI Web, WebSocket, Java-based protocol, Google Web Toolkit, Oracle forms, & more

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2) WebLOAD

WebLOAD is a performance/load testing solution designed to test the most challenging web environments. You develop powerful test scripts by combining recording and JavaScript coding, while WebLOAD helps you address issues like complex sign-ons, asynchronous communication, web services, Websocket APIs and more,. To generate your desired load of virtual users, you can use on premise machines, virtual public cloud machines, or a combination of both, with WebLOAD’s dashboards helping you analyze your system’s behavior and identify bottlenecks. WebLOAD Features: Free Trial: 30-Days Free Trial

Flexible deployment: cloud (SaaS), on-prem or hybrid Smart scripting based on native JavaScript Powerful correlation for handling dynamic values Rich dashboard for performance analysis Outstanding customer support

Protocols:

HTTP, HTTPS, HTTP/2, XML, Single Page Application, RESTful Web Services, and more

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3) Kobiton

Kobiton offers flexible real device access options, including a public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises. With Kobiton’s Performance Testing capabilities, users can integrate real device testing with Load and Stress testing solutions. This can be done manually, with automation via script-based solutions like Appium, and using Kobiton’s AI-driven scriptless engine. With Kobiton, you have a platform solution that allows for insight into app and device-specific performance metrics that easily integrates with solutions like NeoLoad or JMeter. Features: Free Trial: 14-Days Free Trial

Kobiton’s device lab management will let you connect with devices in the cloud, your local on-premises devices as well as on-desk devices. Create automated test scripts from manual tests and are executable on multiple devices simultaneously. Users can test crucial app and website-specific performance with Kobiton’s Payload capture Automatic test case generation from the manual session

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4) HeadSpin

HeadSpin allows you to optimize digital experiences with it’s performance testing capabilities. It can help users continuously monitor, identify, resolve and optimize performance issues across applications, devices, networks, and 3rd-party interfaces. The HeadSpin Global Device Infrastructure provides actual, real-world data removing ambiguity from all the various devices, networks, and locations. Accelerate development and innovation. Ensure digital business success with HeadSpin’s AI testing and dev-ops collaboration platform. Features: Free Trial: 30-Days Free Trial

Monitor and optimize performance across the entire user journey Performance data from real-world conditions Leverage advanced AI capabilities to automatically identify performance issues in testing before they impact users. Test on thousands of real devices in hundred-plus locations with SIM card-enabled devices.

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5) StresStimulus

StresStimulus targets application scenarios that are difficult to test with other tools. It automatically fixes playback errors thanks to its proprietary autocorrelation. StresStimulus records user actions and replays them to emulate variable usage patterns. It also monitors load impact on application responsiveness and server infrastructure. The result analyzer finds hidden concurrency errors left unexposed by functional testing and includes detailed application performance metrics. Features: Free Trial: 7-Days Free Trial

End-to-end Test Wizard covers all steps from recording to test results, which reduces the learning curve. On-premise or cloud testing supported with multiple load generators Works as a stand-alone tool or Fiddler add-on Exports script to Visual Studio test format to help with scenarios that fail when recorded in Visual Studio directly Manual scripting is not required but is available. It supports three scripting languages

Protocols:

HTTP, HTTPS, AJAX, SOAP, WCF, binary WCF, and XML over HTTP.

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6) Apache Jmeter

JMeter is an open-source tool that can be used for performance testing for analyzing and measuring the performance of a variety of services. It is one of the best performance testing tools that is mainly used as website load testing tools for web service applications.

Features:

This free tool doesn’t demand state-of-the-art infrastructure for load testing and supports multiple load injectors managed by a single controller. It is one of the performance test tools which is highly portable and supports 100% all the Java based apps. Less scripting efforts as compared to other API performance testing tools because of its user-friendly GUI Simple charts and graphs are sufficient for analyzing key load-related statistics and resource usage monitors. Supports Integrated real-time, Tomcat collectors for Monitoring

Protocols:

Web: HTTP, HTTPS, WebServices : XML, SOAP, etc., Java based protocols, FTP

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7) Micro Focus LoadRunner

MicroFocus Loadrunner is an enterprise-grade performance testing tool. The test results generated by LoadRunner are considered the gold standard in performance and load testing.

Features:

Lower the cost of distributed load testing Scale from single projects to a full-scale testing Center of Excellence (CoEs) that consolidates hardware, standardizes best practices and leverages global testing resources. Reduce the risk of deploying systems that do not meet performance requirements through the use of an effective enterprise load tester tool It is one of the best performance testing tools that lower hardware and software costs by accurately predicting system capacity. Pinpoint the root cause of application performance problems quickly and accurately It is one of the Effective performance test tools for utilization tracking Browser-based access to global test resources and optimal usage of load generator farm.

Protocols:

All protocols are supported by the Load Runner load test tool

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8) Micro Focus Silk Performer

Silk Performer tool is an enterprise class load and stress testing tool and has the ability to test multiple application environments with thousands of concurrent users. It is one of the best performance testing tools which supports the widest range of protocols.

Features: There are many good load and stress test features in Silk Performer and those are listed as follows:

Components -> Workbench, True Log Explorer and Performance Explorer Requires minimum hardware resources for virtual user simulation Simulates modifiable virtual users This load test tool Supports integrated server monitoring Customer friendly licensing Correlation and Parameterization is user friendly No License requirement for Controllers or Individual Protocols Handles Load Test in Project approach Generates reports with tables and graphs and allows customization. This stress testing tool supports six models of workloads. This load tester tool provides Agent Health Control Stress test website with server-side diagnostics Resource Management It is one of the best website performance testing tools that provide Version Control Management

Protocols:

HTTP/HTML, HTTPS/HTML, HTTP/HTTPS, Flash, Email (SMTP/ POP), FTP, TCP/IP, LDAP, XML/SOAP, .NET and many more

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9) Rational Performance Tester

Rational Performance Tester(RPT) is a performance testing tool developed by IBM Corporation. It is a performance test creation, execution, and analysis tool that helps the development team validate web-based applications’ scalability and reliability before deployment into production.

Features: There are good features that gives confidence to the users that all performance-related bottlenecks are resolved. Following are some of the features of this tool:

No coding involved It is one of the best performance testing tools that provide scheduled and event-based testing Real time reporting for immediate performance problem identification It is one of the best website performance testing tools that can run with large multi-users tests Accurate user profile workloads This load testing tools has automated test data variation Automatic identification of dynamic server responses Performs the website load test with rendered HTML view of web pages visited during test recordings Environment and Platform support Entrust security protocol support Java code insertion for customization

Protocols:

Citrix, Socket Recording, Web HTTP, SOA, SAP, XML, Websphere, Weblogic

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10) SmartMeter.io

SmartMeter.io is an alternative to JMeter and aims to fix its drawbacks. It is one of the best performance testing tools that allow for easy scriptless test scenario creation using the so-called Recorder yet still lets you make advanced edits of the test. It also excels in test reporting and makes use of functions such as automatic test criteria evaluation, test runs comparison, and trend analysis. It fully supports CI/CD integration. Available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Features:

This load test software provides scriptless test scenario creation Comprehensive reporting with automatic evaluation and test runs comparison GUI test run with real time results State-of-the-art response body extractor (Boundary body extractor) CI/CD ready

Protocols:

HTTP, JDBC, LDAP, SOAP, JMS, and FTP

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FAQ

Performance Testing checks the speed, response time, reliability, resource usage, and scalability of a software program under its expected workload. The purpose of Performance Testing is not to find functional defects but to eliminate performance bottlenecks in the software or device Here are some of the Best Performance Testing Tools:

LoadNinja WebLOAD Kobiton HeadSpin StressStimulus Apache Jmeter Micro Focus LoadRunner Micro Focus Silk Performer Rational Performance Tester

Load testing Stress testing Endurance testing Spike testing Volume testing Scalability testing

You should consider the following factors before selecting a tool

Desired Protocol Support: Web, Desktop, Citrix, SAP, etc License Cost, if applicable In the case of an outsourcing project, you need to factor in customer/Client preference for the automation tool. The cost involved in training employees on the tool Hardware/Software requirements of the automation tool Support and Update policy of the automation tool vendor.

Best Performance & Load Testing Tools: (Open Source & Paid)