What tools are recommended for end to end page load time testing (including ajax and styling elements)?

Question

We are looking to measure the length of time it takes for certain key pathways to become 'usable' e.g. certain styling elements will have loaded in and some information ajaxed in on a page. Ideally this could be automated as we currently monitor load times in browser in a manual fashion.

The amount of load is not of primary importance in these tests.

I have written JMeter tests for load, but JMeter does not natively measure the time it takes for ajax requests etc. I have also looked at Gatling briefly, but am unfamiliar with scala.

I am aware of the JMeter WebDriver plugin, but have also heard that selenium is not good for these kind of tests, as it can add load to the server itself, skewing results.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If the amount of load is not important and you only want to know which elements in your webpage are consuming more time (from a single client perspective) you could take a look at YSlow. It also gives you recommendations on how to improve your load time.

In case you need to check this within stress conditions, Silk Performer's TrueLog includes very similar page statistics and recommendations, from DNS lookup to AJAX requests and object rendering.

Answer 2

None of the load testing tools will execute JavaScript. So the choices are in:

• YSlow - for semi-automated checks
• Selenium - for fully automated checks
• JMeter + WebDriver Sampler if you later plan to convert your test into a load test.

Answer 3

If you are familiar with JMeter, the you should use the same for load testing the Ajax enriched web applications. You need to use "JSR223 Sampler" for this purpose.

You can also go for the licensed tools like VSTS, Neoload, Silk Performer and Load Runner (very expensive).

Answer 4

The tools HPE Loadrunner/Performancecenter with the TruClient protocol (more info) and MicroFocus Silk Performer with the Browser Driven protocol (more info) do offer measuring client side.