Open Source Load Testing Tool
I'm looking to stress test a couple of web-based applications for my organization. I looked at the standard commercial tools (RadView WebLoad, Mercury LoadRunner), but the price is just too high. The applications are pretty simple but high-volume (up to 100,000 concurent users). I can't justify paying the high price for commercial applications. Can you suggest any easy-to-use open-source tools that offer comparable results? I will be testing on WIndows XP.
Good Answers (4)
I suggest considering OpenSTA for your testing.
There is a comparison between OpenSTA and Mercury LoadRunner for your review.
Links:
Have u tried OpenSTA - http://www.opensta.org/.
Clarification added March 7, 2007:
Yes. In one of the projects we did (in my past job), the cost conscious
customer was not willing to pay for LoadRunner and the testing scope
was easily
covered by OpenSTA. It turned out good for us. We ended up learning
that tool as part of the project.
Take a look at 2 tools from Apache:
- Flood
- ApacheBench
(please see the links)
Links:
I've used LoadRunner and JMeter in the past. I would go with LoadRunner anytime but as you pointed out pricey. JMeter is a good alternative. It has the same high level architecture as LoadRunner -- one controller multiple clients. The downside is JMeter does not offer as many reporting tools and conviniences as LoadRunner.
Also, 100,000 concurrent users is a lot to test. You'll need a lot of hardware both on your test environment (unless you're testing your production environment) and for the JMeter client machines. As an alternative, you can stage your testing and extrapolate from there. You can start with 10, 50, 100 then go up to 500, 1,000, and 2,000 users.
HTH
More Answers (8)
I have been using httperf and jrunner in a number of situations. Contact me for more details, and futher discussion. WIth partners i have also run this from the net as a service.
Try this free tool from microsoft, though not open source. Its good for basic
web stress testing.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E2C0585A-062A-439E-A67D-75A89AA36495&displaylang=en
Richard,
It would be interesting for you to define "high price." $1000, $10,000, $100K? We have a product that might be helpful as it is built specifically for this task, even though it is not open source. Feel free to contact me if you like, and good luck.
Links:
How about JMeter
Links:
Pat P
Principal Engineer at Sun Microsystems
Best Answers in: Mentoring (1), Computers and Software (1), Software Development (1)
Hi Richard, you might want to look at SLAMD (URL below) - although originally written to test LDAP, it now also covers HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, POP and more. The best thing is that it's distributed, so you can set a whole bunch of clients hammering your service.
Links:
contact Brooks Betz T3 Consortium http://www.t3consortium.com/ - His expertise includes load testing enterprise apps for financial services firms. I'll bet he can help you.
ApacheBench provides limited options for testing. There is a load test tool from Microsoft as well.
Links:
As others here have mentioned, OpenSTA and ApacheBench should meet most of your open testing needs
