Which are the load testing tools that can be easy to use for a developer?

Question

One of my colleagues suggest me to use jmeter or neoload. I didn't even installed it. How can i measure the database load when a 1000 or 5000 user chat at once etc. Let me have a clear idea about the procedure.

Answer 1

One easy to use tool is blitz.io, which makes performance testing almost a one-click action.

However, if you think any tool can be both easy to use, and measure complex behaviour, such as "people chatting", then you are simpy fooling yourself. If all your users do is reload the front page over and over again, fine, that's easy. For anything else, you need a complicated tool to replicate complicated user behaviour. Jmeter as you already mentioned, is one such tool.

There's also a commercial tool, Blazemeter, which is based on Jmeter. Once you have a working Jmeter profile, you can upload it to Blazemeter and automatically setup multiple geographically distributed machines to run your profile. Useful when one wants to make sure network becomes part of the testing, and also for generating larger traffic volumes than a single machine can easily do.

Answer 2

loadimpact is another browser based tool that's easy to use.

Answer 3

I done a user login script and submitting a drupal form using The Grinder for 500, 1000 and 2000 submissions.

I did this because of an online SF DrupalCon 2010 video of the Economist being stress tested using this tool.

I want to make a longer -- log in user, take various forms ... basically a workflow of tests. But, my time is limited to scripting out this test-suite in Jython.

There is a handy http-proxy to Record your sessions (very similar to JMeter).

Answer 4

As other people said JMeter is good, but not easy to use.

BlazeMeter (based on JMeter) has a drupal plugin specifically created to load test drupal sites. BlazeMeter uses JMeter as their back-end, so basically the plugin creates a custom JMeter script to simulate both anon and logged in users for you and then runs it on BlazeMeter's JMeter cloud (and you get nice graphs as well :)

Check out the docs: http://community.blazemeter.com/knowledgebase/articles/73566-blazemeter-drupal-module

Also, you should really use a tool like new-relic to see where the actual bottleneck is occurring.

I work for BlazeMeter, but I wouldn't post an answer that wasn't relevant.

Answer 5

Most of the traditional load testing tools are easier to use for a developer than they are for a tester - because they require a good deal of programming skills to test even moderately complex applications. So from that standpoint, most are easy for developers. JMeter is in this camp - it is good...if you have really easy scenarios to test or if you have plenty of time to write code. And don't need much in the way of realistic simulations or data analysis.

But if you are looking for something that can handle complex applications without any scripting, then you'll need to look at a less traditional tool. One of those was suggested to you, but I'll put in my pitch for Web Performance Load Tester. The LITE version handles really simple stuff for free (unlimited VUs). The PRO version can handle very complex applications with a minimum of configuration. The tests are extremely accurate and easy to setup. The reports provide sophisticated analysis based on your performance goals. Disclaimer: I'm biased - I work for them.

Answer 6

Here are clear steps for NeoLoad. Launch a browser for Recording from the NeoLoad Controller, record a user logging in, selecting a group, and starting to chat by adding a comment. Each "chat" is essentially a POST. Chat sessions are tracked by cookies. Sometimes developers use unique dynamic parameters to check validity of sessions. All of this can be done with NeoLoad. The Post recording Wizard will search and handle the dynamic parameters found within the traffic captures from the browser to the web application. If any are not uncovered, you can easily extract to handle. Perhaps your chat application uses PUSH technology to send/receive chats anychronously, NeoLoad can automatically handle this behavior with forks. Next you'll want to variable both the users and their messages. Adding variables to your scripts is quite easy, you can use a variety of sources or have NeoLoad create the random content. Next select a load policy with peak number of users you expect to be chatting. Execute your load tests and use NeoLoad's built-in monitors.