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Apache JMeter vs OpenText Silk Test comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache JMeter
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (1st), Load Testing Tools (1st), API Testing Tools (3rd)
OpenText Silk Test
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (20th), Regression Testing Tools (9th), Test Automation Tools (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. Apache JMeter is designed for Performance Testing Tools and holds a mindshare of 24.4%, up 22.6% compared to last year.
OpenText Silk Test, on the other hand, focuses on Functional Testing Tools, holds 1.1% mindshare, down 1.7% since last year.
Performance Testing Tools
Functional Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sreenivasula Mukkamalla - PeerSpot reviewer
Leveraging cost-effective customization with powerful plugins but complexity reduction needed
Apache JMeter offers plugins for reporting and preparing test scenarios. It allows recording to customization, letting you download plugins to connect with databases or external systems. Despite being open source, it offers features comparable to paid tools, and its ability to customize and expand is particularly useful. Additionally, its open-source nature makes it cost-effective.
SrinivasPakala - PeerSpot reviewer
Stable, with good statistics and detailed reporting available
While we are performance testing the engineering key, we need to come up with load strategies to commence the test. We'll help to monitor the test, and afterward, we'll help to make all the outcomes, and if they are new, we'll do lots and lots of interpretation and analysis across various servers, to look at response times, and impact. For example, whatever the observations we had during the test, we need to implement it. We'll have to help to catch what exactly is the issues were, and we'll help to see how they can be reduced. Everything is very manual. It's up to us to find out exactly what the issues are. The solution needs better monitoring, especially of CPU.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"JMeter is easy to use for a user who doesn't have too much knowledge of programming or certain languages."
"Any front-end technologies like Angular, React, or others might access the services. Therefore, you must ensure that using SAP with JMeter works fine. Unless you ensure this, the front-end team may not access the services properly."
"The most valuable features of Apache JMeter include SCTP sampler, throughput controllers, stepping up thread group, parallel controller, timers, and the ability to use gRPC protocol."
"It is open source as well as relatively extendable. It allows us to extend and add additional functionality and features. Its deployment is also very easy."
"The product helps me get the expected performance from applications or servers and reduces costs. It also enhances the performance of the services and helped them reach their ultimate capacity."
"Monetary benefits with Apache JMeter are notable since it doesn’t require a licensed version."
"Due to process automation, I don't have to prepare reports, making it the perfect solution."
"Very user-friendly and easy to use."
"The feature I like most is the ease of reporting."
"The scalability of the solution is quite good. You can easily expand the product if you need to."
"A good automation tool that supports SAP functional testing."
"The major thing it has helped with is to reduce the workload on testing activities."
"It's easy to automate and accelerate testing."
"The ability to develop scripts in Visual Studio, Visual Studio integration, is the most valuable feature."
"Scripting is the most valuable. We are able to record and then go in and modify the script that it creates. It has a lot of generative scripts."
"The statistics that are available are very good."
 

Cons

"The UI of the solution needs to be better. The UI takes up a lot of our bandwidth."
"JMeter's reporting is extremely rudimentary. The fundamental reporting mechanisms need to be drastically improved. It doesn't utilize an automatic session management mechanism or methods other tools use like parsing cookies and variables. Everything needs to be done manually. There's no automation."
"One area for improvement is the ability to decrease load suddenly during tests. Currently, we need to use multiple separate JMeter instances to simulate reductions in load, which isn't ideal."
"The UI could be better."
"JMeter output reports can be difficult to understand without training."
"The solution's setup could be easier and security could be improved to minimize vulnerabilities."
"They should improve the solution on its UI front."
"JMeter is lagging when it comes to GUI performance testing because we need to install some third-party plugins for recording the GUI script, and the performance isn't very reliable."
"Could be more user-friendly on the installation and configuration side."
"The pricing is an issue, the program is very expensive. That is something that can improve."
"We moved to Ranorex because the solution did not easily scale, and we could not find good and short term third-party help. We needed to have a bigger pool of third-party contractors that we could draw on for specific implementations. Silk didn't have that, and we found what we needed for Ranorex here in the Houston area. It would be good if there is more community support. I don't know if Silk runs a user conference once a year and how they set up partners. We need to be able to talk to somebody more than just on the phone. It really comes right down to that. The generated automated script was highly dependent upon screen position and other keys that were not as robust as we wanted. We found the automated script generated by Ranorex and the other key information about a specific data point to be more robust. It handled the transition better when we moved from computer to computer and from one size of the application to the other size. When we restarted Silk, we typically had to recalibrate screen elements within the script. Ranorex also has some of these same issues, but when we restart, it typically is faster, which is important."
"They should extend some of the functions that are a bit clunky and improve the integration."
"The solution has a lack of compatibility with newer technologies."
"The support for automation with iOS applications can be better."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Everything is very manual. It's up to us to find out exactly what the issues are."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since it is an open-source product, buying or paying for any license is unnecessary. One just needs to download it to be able to use it."
"It is free."
"Since we are using an outsourced solution, it is not paid for by our company."
"When comparing the price with Load Runner, and if the cost is an issue then JMeter is a better choice"
"JMeter is open source and available free of charge."
"I haven't looked into it. Most of our projects are nonprofit or grant-based. Everything is public commons, so we don't really have to worry about that so much."
"It is open source. There are no licensing costs associated. If you need enterprise support, you'll probably end up paying for a license. You would also factor in the infrastructure cost, but that's not significant."
"We are using the free version, and if required, we can easily switch to the other version."
"We paid annually. There is a purchase cost, and then there is an ongoing maintenance fee."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis, and while I think that the price is quite reasonable I am not allowed to share those details."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Postman compare with Apache JMeter?
Postman lets you easily define variables, which then get updated automatically. This is a huge time-saver and makes processes very efficient. We can also export the test cases we create and share t...
How does BlazeMeter compare with Apache JMeter?
Blazemeter is a continuous testing platform that provides scriptless test automation. It unifies functional and performance testing, enabling users to monitor and test public and private APIs. We ...
What do you like most about Apache JMeter?
I appreciate JMeter's simplicity and power for performance testing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silk Test?
The pricing depends on the license used. The pricing is similar to others in the market.
What is your primary use case for Silk Test?
The product is used for manual, functional, and performance testing. I'm using the tool for loading data into ERP systems.
 

Also Known As

JMeter
Segue, SilkTest, Micro Focus Silk Test
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AOL, Orbitz, Innopath Software, PrepMe, Sapient, Corporate Express Australia, CSIRO, Ephibian, Talis, DATACOM, ALALOOP, eFusion, Panter, Sourcepole, University of Western Cape
Krung Thai Computer Services, Quality Kiosk, Mªller, AVG Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Tricentis, OpenText and others in Performance Testing Tools. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.