4 Best Open-Source Web App Performance Testing Tools To Use

“If your page does not load within 5 seconds, 50% of customers abandon your site.” That statement speaks a lot about customers’ increasing need for high-speed access to web applications. With mobile web also causing significant traffic to websites and web applications, checking your web application’s performance is essential. 

With the need to analyze the performance of your web application increasing, it is a good idea to evaluate some of the popular open-source performance testing tools. We will talk about why you should use an Open source performance test tool for your Performance testing needs and give an overview of some of the popular Open source performance test tools. 

Why choose Open Source Performance Test tool: 

• No licensing cost – a commercial load testing tool can burn your pockets when you want to test with a heavy number of virtual users 

• Generate (almost) an infinite amount of load on the web application without additional licensing costs. The only limitation would be the resources available 

• Create your plug-ins to extend the analysis and reporting capabilities 

• Integrate with other open-source and commercial tools to drive end-to-end test cycles 

Some of the Popular Open Source Performance Test tools: 

Apache J Meter 

Apache J Meter is an open-source load testing tool built on the Java Platform. This testing tool is developed to test load test functional behavior and performance testing. It supports testing static and dynamic resources such as Servlets, Java Objects, Perl Scripts, FTP servers, databases, etc. It requires JVM 1.4 or higher to perform. Although initially designed to test web applications, today, its scope has widened to other test areas. 

With a vast user community and an ever-expanding list of Plugins, JMeter is a favorite for many organizations when it comes to Performance, stress, and load testing. 

Load UI 

Load UI is a viral open-source stress tool for performance testing web applications. It supports testing numerous web protocols such as AMF, REST, JMS, JDBC, and websites. Many testers agree that LoadUI is one of the most interactive and user-friendly testing tools. This tool is integrated with a functional testing tool, soapUI, which adds to its effectiveness. Testers can create, configure, and update their tests during the testing phase. LoadUI features a high graphic interface that makes testing easier. 

LoadUI also comes as LoadUI Pro to extend the open-source version’s features. 

Open STA (Open System Testing Architecture) 

Open STA is the abbreviation for Open System Testing Architecture, built around COBRA. Testers use this GUI-based testing tool for load analysis and load testing. This complex testing tool is known to perform heavy test loads for scripted HTTP and HTTPS. The tests are conducted using simple scripts and recordings, and various results and statistics are taken into account. During load tests, Open STA graphs resource utilization information from application servers, web servers, operating platforms, and database servers that help in further analysis. 

THE GRINDER – GENERIC JYTHON LOAD TESTER 

Using the Java implementation of Python (Jython), The Grinder is a script-only, feature-rich load-testing platform. Possibly the most potent lightweight free load testers on the market, but also the most difficult to master. There is no GUI to speak of, and there is very little in the way of examples… but at least it has a good FAQ. It isn’t helpful for Front End Automation, but otherwise, The Grinder is flexible and infinitely helpful if you master it. This is the programmer’s preferred load-testing tool. 

The Performance Engineering team at Cigniti has helped many customers identify the key bottlenecks and fix them. We have enabled customers to utilize open-source tools like JMeter with their enterprise resources to generate higher loads, at no extra cost, to stress test their applications. 

Cigniti also helps you generate real-time Mobile browser load with its huge set of devices in the Mobile Test Lab, which is spread across geographic locations. 

If you are unsure of your web performance strategies or are losing many customers, write to us today at contact@cigniti.com, and we will help your application reach its real performance potential!