Load Testing: Which Tool to Choose?

The topic of load testing tool selection always triggers a lot of discussion. Unfortunately, it often turns into religious wars instead of objective technical analysis. When I blogged about this topic before here or here I got a lot of comments. So, finally, based on what I wrote before, I prepared the ‘Load Testing: Which Tool to Choose?’ paper and slides to present at the Performance and Capacity Conference by CMG. Just to discuss different aspects of load testing tools and list some considerations impacting the selection process. The list, of course, was far from comprehensive and was provided rather to illustrate the existing issues and show how the selection process for specific needs may be approached.

I mostly concentrated on more generic tools – there are also interesting tools that work well in specific niches. During the discussion after my presentation, Martin Spier (@spiermar) mentioned Twitter’s Iago as a good specialized tool to create heavy load. Probably Yandex Tank is another tool to create specialized heavy load. There are other niches where specialized tools may be found. Empirix Hammer, for example, has sophisticated functionality to test phone-related services.

Unfortunately, not much may be found about such niche tools – but the topic of comparing generic load testing tools becomes again more popular as competition between tools increases. Some comparisons are better, some are worse. An example of better is Choosing the right Performance Test Tools – An In-depth Analysis. An example of not so good, in my opinion, is Quick Guide to Performance Testing Tools That Can Save You $$$. Not that the guidelines are bad there – just the selection of tools looks somewhat strange and some information looks outdated. As well as the descriptions look like a copy from marketing documents – which maybe not the best indication of what / how well the tool does.