What do you use for performance testing? In the modern era, performance is the critical issue that industries such as Airlines, Retail, Banking, eCommerce, etc. are facing. There is nothing worse than your app’s function and capacity failing to maintain heavy user workloads. Fortunately, there is a way to determine the exact system’s performance. It is when the term ‘performance testing’ comes to the fore. With all of the open-source and premium tools accessible, you can take steps to avoid system failure.
Performance and load test is a critical part of the QA process. Performance testing mainly addresses the bottlenecks or anomalies of the system and fine-tunes it by discovering the root cause. Unlike other bug testing tools, performance testing institutes a baseline and then attempt to determine bottlenecks by adding up stress. Specific tests include load tests, spike tests, volume tests, soak or endurance tests, and others.
Statistically, it has been revealed that only applications that perform well, without any glitches, are likely to retain and catch the attention of your customer base. Therefore, it is crucial for enterprises to include effective performance testing approaches to maintain and protect their leading brands.
What is Performance Testing?
Performance popularly known as “Perf Testing” is an empirical method of testing. Through this test procedure, the application could be capable enough to withstand a load of data volumes, requests, and heavy users. Performance tested apps ensures whether the launched software meets the agreed SLAs (Service Agreement Levels) compliance and delivers great system satisfactions. In a nutshell, performance tests tell us about what needs to mend and what needs to be fixed before going live (critical problems under load conditions). It also guarantees that your software will eventually become.
- Scalable
- Stable
- Better server response time
- High-speed loading
- Improved UX (User Experience)
Performance testing includes a series of testing which allows scrutiny of the system’s distinct aspects. The kind of testing reveals what needs to be fixed before going live (for instance load situation) Now before we dive through best performance testing tools, let us first take a glance into the types of performance testing where each simulates a diverse possible user scenario.
- Load testing – Ensures the capability of software apps to perform under heavy user traffic. The aim is to scrutinize the performance bottlenecks before the apps go live. Few examples of load tests- Running several apps concurrently on server or testing printer to send heavy jobs.
- Stress testing – Test an application under extreme workloads for checking the stability and to observe how it handles heavy data processing or traffic. Stress testing is also referred to as fatigue testing; the objective is to determine the failure of an application/ system.
- Endurance testing – Checks the system’s behaviour over extended periods of time to scrutinize memory leaks, system failure, etc. It ensures whether the software application can handle the expected load (a large number of users) over a long period of time.
- Spike testing – It is a part of Stress Testing. This type of testing validates the performance quality when the system/ application under sudden workload models beyond the proposed scope for a short duration.
- Volume testing – Monitors the operation’s efficiency by subjecting the program under varying database volumes. The aim is to scrutinize the software app’s performance under a high volume of data.
- Scalability testing – It is a type of non-functional testing. The tests scrutinize the software application’s efficiency and capacity and find out what peak the system prevents more scaling.
Why Performance Testing?
Performance tests are performed to ensure software application runs faster and speedier enough to maintain a user’s attention. Dunn & Bradstreet (global analysts) reports states that around 59% of Fortune 500 enterprises encounter approximately 1.6 hours of downtime each week. Software app’s performance like its resource usage, response time, load time, reliability, and scalability does matter. Performance testing services executed by QA Consultant mainly provide stakeholders with critical data about their software product concerning stability, speed, scalability, and reliability.
Performance Tests mainly uncovers things that need to be improved by detecting the performance of the software before going live to the market. Without this type of testing, the software product may likely to encounter issues like slow run down while several users use it at once, poor usability, and inconsistencies across diverse OSs. This type of testing is not only detecting bugs but eradicating all the performance bottlenecks.
Common Performance Problems:
Take a look at some of the common performance problems noticed in the software system:
- Poor scalability
- Extended Load time
- Poor response time
- Bottlenecking
- Software configuration problems (for the databases, web server, etc.)
- Poor network configuration
- Memory utilization
- CPU utilization
- Disk usage
- OS limitations
- Insufficient hardware resources
5 Best Performance Tools Trending in 2020
An effective performance testing strategy is important to highlight all the performance issues or bottlenecks. There is numerous performance testing tools available in the market to execute performance testing. The eminent performance testing company like KiwiQA uses top performance testing tools to measure the performance of an app or system under test (AUT) and release top-quality software.
- Apache JMeter
It is a pure Java open source and performance test tool designed by Apache Software Foundation’s Director Stefano Mazzocchi. JMeter smartly to carry out load and performance testing and scrutinizes the performance of a range of services. We can use this Apache JMeter performance test tool to test web and mobile service applications.
Protocols:
- XML
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- Java-based protocols
- SOAP
- FTP
Crucial Features:
- Open-source software/ tool that comes with a great GUI
- Platform-independent software developed using Java
- Supports numerous load injectors managed by a solo controller
- Supports all the Java-based apps and highly extensible
- Less scripting required in contrast to several other tools
- Supports various server types & protocols
- Easy Charts and diagrams for analyzing key load-related statistics and resource usage monitors.
- Having the capacity to extract data from different response formats, HTML, JSON, XML, or other textual formats
- Run any environment that supports JVM
- WebLoad Tool
WebLOAD is a famous and most-admired software test tool. WebLOAD is an enterprise-level load analysis and software testing tool. This is a much-used web and mobile testing software test tool from RadView Software. WebLOAD features a complete Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Load Generation Console, and advanced Analytics Dashboard. It counts integrity, stability, scalability, and performance, as one procedure to verify both web and mobile apps.
Protocols:
- XML
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- Server Technologies
- Network Technology
- Enterprise applications
Crucial Features:
- Generate load On-Premises or in the Cloud (SAAS)
- Powerful correlation engine
- Flexible test scenario design and creation
- Supports major web technology and extensive range of web, mobile, and enterprise technologies
- Automated bottleneck search
- Native JavaScript scripting with powerful correlation, validation engines, and parametrization
- Easy-to-reach client support, rReports, and one can easily scrutinize analysis data even remotely through a tailored Web Dashboard.
- LoadUI Pro Tool
LoadUI Pro by Smartbear is an open-source specialized for load testing to measure the performance of web applications. This testing tool works efficiently when it is integrated with the functional testing tool, such as soapUI. LoadUI is an interactive and very flexible test tool. This allows you to create, configure, and upgrade your tests while the app is being tested. One could easily get access to comprehensive reports and intelligently automate the following tests on Jenkins, TFS, Bamboo, as well as other automatic frameworks.
Protocols:
- SOAP
- HTTP
- REST
- API Blueprint
- JSON
- XML Schema
- JSON Schema
Crucial Features:
- Scriptless Load test creation
- Preconfigured load test templates such as stress, smoke, baseline, spike
- Drag & drop tests on distribution agents on cloud
- Advanced analytics and statists traits for reporting
- Quick conversion of functional tests
- Used to perform API load tests- support JMS, MQTT SOAP, REST, and various other API formats
- Speedy conversion of functional tests from SoapUI as load testing
- Access comprehensive reports and quickly automate your load tests on Jenkins, Bamboo, TFS, as well as other automation testing frameworks.
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- HP Performance Tester (LoadRunner) Tool
HP LoadRunner. is the industry-standard performance and load testing tool from Micro Focus. This load test tool supports to manage issues by detecting performance bottlenecks and to get an exact picture of system performance before its introduction to the market. LoadRunner is mainly used to test apps, determine system behaviour, and the app’s performance under heavy load. The simulation of thousands of users using application software at once is easy with the assistance of this test tool.
Protocols:
All protocols are supported by Load Runner
Core Features:
- Effective tool utilization tracking
- Extremely flexible for companies and projects ( either small or full-scale) of different sizes
- Scrutinize the root cause of performance problems of software app very accurately
- Controls the risk to deploy systems using valuable enterprise load testing
- Allows you to test a series of apps counting mobile, Silverlight, Citrix, HTML 5, SOAP, Ajax, Flex, ERP, .NET, GWT, Java, and legacy.
- Manages hardware and software expense by straight prediction system competence
- Detects completely the grounds for app’s performance problems
- Browser-based approach to global test resources
- NeoLoad
NeoLoad is a popular testing tool that cleverly automates test design, maintenance, and analysis for agile & DevOps, teams. Designed by Netosys, the leading French company and written in JAVA programming language (accessible in both French and English). The load test tools like NeoLoad helps you to improve and optimize the web application’s performance. NeoLoad cleverly integrates with CD (continuous delivery) pipelines to support an end to end performance tests.
Protocols:
- REST
- HTTP
- Flex Push
- SOAP
- AJAX Push
- HTTPS
Features:
- Automated test design allowing rapid test creation
- DNS tunnel mode and Proxy mode
- Examine test results in real-time
- Great support for all the most modern web technologies
- Assists scriptless design and visual programming
- Automatically Detects app-centric parameters
- Unique features that can be used to test video and audio
- Integration with Continuous Integration servers for test automation runtime
- Share performance testing outcomes with QA, Dev, Ops
- It consists of Shared test scripts and reports
- Know the capability of the app and the number of concurrent users it can manage
Wrapping Up
Higher competition in the digital era and the need to be present at the top of the market, makes Performance Testing services critical for all companies. Ensuring your app’s scalability, dependability, speed, and stability is crucial. Releasing software apps to the tech world with poor performance due to inadequate testing without a premier performance testing company like KiwiQA is likely to create a bad image and fail to meet your user’s goals. Allowing time for comprehensive performance testing is important before you think about marketing or introducing any software product.
You have to pick out the best tool according to your estimated project costs and goals. Performance testing, with its best techniques and approach, identifies whether their software meets speed, scalability, reliability, and stability requirements under expected workloads.
See more Performance Testing resources on EuroSTARHuddle.com
Check out the functional testing talks on this year’s EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference programme.
