Apache JMeter vs IBM Rational Performance Tester vs OpenText LoadRunner Professional comparison

Apache JMeter is an open-source Java application that tests load and functional behavior and performance in applications. Created initially to test web applications, it has expanded its functionality to test other functions. For instance, you can test a server to see how efficiently it works and how many user requests can be handled simultaneously.

You can use JMeter to test functional performance and regression tests on different technologies. This Java desktop application has an easy-to-use graphical interface which uses the Swing graphical API. You can run JMeter on any environment that accepts a Java virtual machine, such as Windows, Linux, and Mac.

What protocols does JMeter support?

• Web - HTTP, HTTPS
• Web services - SOAP/XML-RPC
• Email service - POP3, IMAP, SMTP
• FTP service
• Database via JDBC drivers
• LDAP
• Native commands or shell scripts
• TCP
• Java objects

How does JMeter work?

JMeter sends requests to a target server by simulating a group of user requests. Then it collects and calculates statistics on the performance of the target. This target can be a server or an application.

You can test the performance of static resources, such as JavaScript or HTML, and dynamic resources, such as JSP, Servlets, and AJAX. It is also helpful to determine how many concurrent users your website can handle.

There are two main tests you can carry out with JMeter: load test and stress test. The load test models expected usage of a server by simulating multiple users accessing the web server simultaneously. The stress testing aims to find the maximum load capacity of the server or application.

Apache JMeter Key Features

• JMeter enables fast test plan recording, building, and debugging via a featured test IDE (integrated development environment).
• Command-line mode allows carrying out load tests from any OS compatible with Java.
• JMeter can extract data from most popular response formats, such as HTML, JSON, XML.
• JMeter is entirely portable.
• A multithreading framework allows you to simultaneously test multiple samplings and separate thread groups.
• Thanks to the caching feature, you can conduct offline analysis or replay test results.

Apache JMeter Benefits

• As open-source software, it is freely available and continuously improved.
• The setup is user-friendly, and no installation is needed.
• The GUI (graphic user interface) is intuitive and easy to use.
• You can write your own tests and use the visualization plugins to extend the testing.
• It is a platform-agnostic tool. For example, JMeter can work with Linux by clicking on the JMeter shell script. On Windows, you can call up JMeter by starting the jmeter.bat file.
• Since the test plans are stored in XML format, you can generate a test plan using any text editor.
• You can simulate a heavy load on a server, a group of servers, a network, or an object. Use JMeter to test an application or server's strength and performance under different load types.

The JMeter extensible core has numerous benefits:

• Unlimited testing capabilities via pluggable samplers.
• You can choose multiple load statistics with pluggable timers.
• Visualization plugins and data analysis enable customization.
• Continuous integration via third-party open-source libraries (Maven, Gradle, and Jenkins).

Reviews from Real Users

Stephen B., I.T. Architect, Analyst, and Developer at an educational organization, says, "The scripting ability is most valuable. It is easy to use. There is a UI, and you can go in there and figure those things out. After you've got a good set of tests, you basically have a scripted document that you can grab and execute in a pipeline. It is pretty quick to set up, and you can scale it and version control it."

"I like the fact that JMeter integrates well with other tools," adds the Founder and Principal Consultant at a tech services company.

A Quality Engineering Delivery Leader at a financial services firm says, “The performance of the solution is excellent. They have designed the product so that it is very easy to configure. You can basically do anything you like with the product. It's not very restrictive. We like the fact that the technology is open-source.”

OpenText LoadRunner Professional is a performance testing tool used for various software applications, including web-related use cases, API testing, and enterprise performance modeling. Its valuable features include quick test case creation and execution, graph monitoring, multiple protocols, scripting and executing tests, scalability, easy setup, auto-correlation, analysis and reporting capabilities, stability, reliability, and compatibility with various programming languages. 

LoadRunner has helped organizations load test potential new payroll solutions and choose the best option, record network traffic of mobile applications, and handle different protocols. It is the ultimate tool for performance testing.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional Will Enable You To:

• Drive quality across your enterprise.
• Alleviate the challenges of managing many application types, testing tools, licenses, repositories, and systems while working toward unified results.

With OpenText LoadRunner Professional You Can:

• Increase organizational efficiency through standardization of tools and resources.
• Balance your priorities and improve the results delivered by your testing team.
• Increase testing productivity.
• Improve collaboration across application teams.
• Gain the ability to outsource some or all the tactical work of load testing.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional Features:

• Intuitive and Easy to Use: OpenText LoadRunner Professional is intuitive, versatile, and easy to use, which makes it easy for testers to quickly learn the basics and apply them to their testing tasks, while engineers who are more experienced can utilize all the features for the most complex of scenarios.
• Comprehensive Enterprise Coverage: OpenText LoadRunner Professional provides support for multiple protocols such as HTML, WebSocket, AJAX, RDP, Database, Remote Terminal Emulators, Citrix, Java, .NET, Oracle and SAP.
• Scripting Technologies: Reduce scripting time by 50% or more via OpenText LoadRunner Professional’s TruClient protocol, and automatic correlation, and correlate both front end (user experience) and back end (load) issues.
• Extensive and Flexible Test Scenarios: The LoadRunner solution provides several valuable features that let you validate, enhance, and modify your tests. It gives you the ability to integrate external measurements to assess the impact on every application component, extend tests with success-failure checks, and emulate peak loads. You can also apply load on the go and change parameters for better flexibility in order to yield the most representative testing possible.
• Realistic Network Conditions: Network virtualization capabilities help accurately simulate realistic conditions for an accurate analysis of both throughput and user response time. Realistic network conditions are predicted using location-aware analytics, transaction analysis and optimization.
• Accurate Workloads with Low Overhead: OpenText LoadRunner Professional allows you to run high-scale tests with minimal hardware so that you can apply accurate workloads to any application.
• Ongoing Testing Support: The OpenText LoadRunner Professional solution provides continuous testing support via built-in integrations across IDE, CI/CD, open source test automation, monitoring, and source code management tools.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional Benefits:

• Quickly deliver enterprise engineering capabilities and facilitate sharing of assets and collaboration.
• Reduce complexity and increase utilization of infrastructure and human resources.
• Get the big picture with cross-project reporting and individual project drill downs.
• Increase collaboration and consistency with unified storage and access to all relevant assets.
• Reduce costs with centralized management and built-in support of cloud-based load generation.
• Analyze end-to-end performance, including topology, infrastructure-level, and advanced insights.
• Incorporate application monitoring and user sentiment data to take a centralized approach to data collection and connect the dots.
• Using powerful analytics and insights, gain visibility into the test status across the entire enterprise and performance trending information across multiple tests.

Reviews from Real Users:

"The most useful aspect of the solution is that it provides agents in different geographic locations.” - Head, Testing Centre of Excellence at NIIT Technologies Limited

"The most important feature for us is that it supports a lot of protocols because we support all of them, including HTTP, FTP, mainframe, and others.” - Test Automation, DevOps & Performance Engineering at a financial services firm

"The solution can handle a huge amount of workloads, it's quite scalable.” - Regional Head Customer Experience at a financial services firm

"The reporting mechanism is a valuable feature that generates good reports.” - Senior Architect at a computer software company