I need to run a UI load test against a web application with 1200 concurrent virtual users. I've looked at several products, and they seem to cost upwards of $1500 for a one month licence. I'm wondering if anyone knows a more cost-effective method of load testing web applications?
I've looked at Bees with Machine Guns, and spinning up several AWS EC2 instances to host them, however I'm interested in any other solutions - standard and unconventional!
Here you check.
There are 58 (and counting) free and open source load testing tools which you can utilize.
If you are looking for the narrowed-down list check out Open Source Load Testing Tools: Which One Should You Use? article which describes and compares the following tools:
There you will be able to find feature comparison matrix, sample load tests, and reports.
If you don't have previous load testing/coding experience Apache JMeter would be the most obvious choice as it is very popular, GUI-based, has good documentation and large community, however other tools may be a better fit for your project.
Have you considered Jmeter? it is completely free for the tool itself and can allow you to craft good solid scripts, I won't advise on what type of hardware you will need because I do not know what you already have, but I think 2-3 Load injecting machines would do the trick for 1200 users no problem (Really depends on the spec of machines available). You can proxy your browser and record your requests in order to make a script, I would highly recommend adding some plugins and making your scripts as realistic as possible (by adding a delay/timer to replicate real world use etc).
Here are some great resources to check out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335LKIXRauA (Great talk from Goranka Bjedov) http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/ (Jmeter user manual/getting started) http://jmeter.apache.org/download_jmeter.cgi (Jmeter downloads)
Siege is load testing tool and its a open source tool, learning is very simple, it support multiple platform and its latest version 4.0.2 and if you are using linux os only need this command to install brew install siege
Currently I'm working in siege tool. I am checking the load of my server using siege tool and monitoring linux top command. First i run the load test with a relatively small number of concurrent users. then i check the siege output . In the outptut i can see that transcation, no .of hits in the server, elapsed time duration of entire test, data transfered, it is the sum of data transfered to every siege simulated user, response time, concurrency, no. of succesful transaation, failed transaction.
I'm saying that Siege (like any other tool) can only simulate some limited number of users. Siege is very easy to learn only go through the siege documentation.
siege does not have enough features compare with other other tool, but easy to learn
I had quite a pleasant experience with the free and open-source locust.io load testing framework. It is amazingly easy to set up and control the logic of the load test. It is Python-based.
You can specify and change the number of concurrent users on the fly. And, it can also work in a distributed fashion.
If you want/need to load test a webapplication on the gui-level there is no free/open source tool (that i know of) that supports that. You will need (expensive) tools like:
