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OpenText LoadRunner Professional vs Selenium HQ 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

OpenText LoadRunner Profess...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (4th), Load Testing Tools (4th)
Selenium HQ
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (5th), Regression Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. OpenText LoadRunner Professional is designed for Performance Testing Tools and holds a mindshare of 13.0%, down 14.5% compared to last year.
Selenium HQ, on the other hand, focuses on Functional Testing Tools, holds 3.7% mindshare, down 5.5% since last year.
Performance Testing Tools
Functional Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

HelenSague - PeerSpot reviewer
A sophisticated tool that supports many languages and works with all kinds of applications
I do not have any big challenges with LoadRunner. I only have some issues with load generators. It is a very common issue, and I hope it will be resolved in the latest release. For example, when we start to run our tests, users get the message that the load generator exceeded 80% of the CPU utilization. Even when the number of users is less, we get these messages. I am trying to resolve it, but it is not going. It is annoying. It is not a failure, but I hope that it will be resolved. IBM WebSphere MQ testing can be a bit challenging. It can handle that, but I hope that they will build more and more capabilities. We do a huge amount of testing for messaging. Just like aviation, the railway industry is based on messaging. There is messaging to build trains and messaging to create some bills. There are many train movements. Everything involves messaging. I wish that it will be developed more for IBM WebSphere testing. Monitoring is okay, but for testing, I currently have to create Java users. I have to load a lot of libraries from IBM WebSphere and so on.
Anil Kumar Shrestha - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source solution that integrates with every programming language and library
What I like best about it is that it can automate everything on the front end with the help of other frameworks. The community worldwide provides support for any issues. Plus, it’s open-source, which is a big advantage. The solution integrates with every programming language and library and is very easy to use. It has a simple syntax, and the documentation on the website makes it straightforward to learn and implement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"LoadRunner is a very sophisticated tool, and I can use many languages. For example, I can use Java. I can use C++. I can test the Internet of Things, FTP, mail, and Active Directory. It is very useful."
"The reporting mechanism is a valuable feature that generates good reports."
"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."
"It has features for recording. The best feature with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is that there is very little bottleneck or overhead issues. With LoadRunner, you can spawn 2000 contributions for one machine."
"We don't find any features lacking. One of the most beneficial points we have from LoadRunner is we start sizing our infrastructure accordingly. So what we do is when we deploy a new workload, we do performance testing."
"The ability to do multithreading. That's available in any performance testing tool, but the number of protocols that this particular tool supports has been very good."
"The initial setup and installation of the software were very easy and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature depends on what we're doing at the time. In the past, the greatest feature was the ability to record and play back to produce a script. Another great feature is that we can monitor the system. They also support many protocols to perform load testing."
"Ability to integrate with every other tool."
"The solution is free to use."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to catch content from website."
"Selenium HQ has a lot of capabilities and is compatible with many languages."
"The product is quite stable."
"Selenium HQ lets you create your customized functions with whatever language you want to use, like Python, Java, .NET, etc. You can integrate with Selenium and write."
"Selenuim helps us during testing. We are able to reduce the number and frequency of manual efforts by using scripts."
"Selenium is an open-source tool."
 

Cons

"IBM WebSphere MQ testing can be a bit challenging. It can handle that, but I hope that they will build more and more capabilities. We do a huge amount of testing for messaging. Just like aviation, the railway industry is based on messaging. There is messaging to build trains and messaging to create some bills. There are many train movements. Everything involves messaging. I wish that it will be developed more for IBM WebSphere testing. Monitoring is okay, but for testing, I currently have to create Java users. I have to load a lot of libraries from IBM WebSphere and so on."
"The only scenario we see a complexity is when we have single-page applications where JavaScript is talking to the server and coming back. That's the only scenario where we find some difficulties."
"The product is pretty heavy and should be more lightweight."
"The pricing model, selling model, and business model need to be adjusted. For non-enterprise organizations, Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is too expensive and not worth the cost."
"The pricing could be lower."
"Sometimes, we aren't able to see an accurate page view while replying and executing the script. When you are navigating the application side by side, it needs to be displayed on a random viewer. Sometimes we will get a few applications, and we won't get others."
"The solution needs to reduce its pricing. Right now, it's quite expensive."
"The flexibility could be improved."
"Selenium HQ could have better interaction with SAP products."
"Shadow DOM could be improved and the handling of single page applications. Right now, it's a bit complicated and there are a lot of additional scripts required if you want to handle a single page application in a neat way."
"It would be very helpful to be able to write scripts in a GUI, rather than depend so heavily on the command line."
"Selenium HQ doesn't have any self-healing capabilities."
"Selenium uses a layer-based approach that is somewhat slower than Eggplant when it comes to executing code."
"The solution does not offer up enough information in regards to personality testing."
"We'd like to see some more image management in future releases."
"Handling frames and windows needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is complex. You have to pick up the protocol and the number of concurrent users, and then select the level of concurrent users. For example, there would be one price for 100 to 500 users and another for 500 to 2000 users. If you choose two protocols, then you will have to pay twice the amount depending on the number of concurrent users."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"I don't know the licensing cost, but I think that you would get a discount for normal usage. I think there are different yearly options for different types of usage. It is not only how many users, but also whether it is shareable or not and other criteria involved in each feature. There are additional fees for the users and hardware linked to the processing."
"The pricing model and the software licensing model could be better."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"There is a licensing cost that is expensive."
"It is a high-cost investment, particularly for companies with small budgets or limited testing needs."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis and is relatively expensive."
"The setup cost is open source or free."
"The pricing is open source."
"It is an open-source tool."
"Selenium is free software so we do not pay licensing costs."
"It is all free."
"This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"Selenium HQ is a free solution."
"It is free."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 13, 2014
LoadRunner vs NeoLoad
The six phases of an IT project Enthusiasm Disillusionment Panic Search for the guilty Punishment of the innocent (the performance tester) Praise and rewards for the incompetent non-participants This article has been put together as part of an evaluation of the performance test tools NeoLoad and…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
When designing a workload model offers a good range of possibilities for creating goal-oriented scenarios, which helps us understand and meet SLAs.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
Technical support needs to be faster, and the pricing should be more competitive. The virtual table server feature should be reintroduced. Some AI capabilities should be added. There should be an '...
How do I choose between Selenium HQ and Eggplant Digital Automation Intelligence?
Selenium HQ’s biggest advantage is that it is customizable. Its other most valuable feature is that the driver interface is really helpful and user-friendly; Selenium HQ makes it easy to navigate t...
What do you like most about Selenium HQ?
Selenium's open-source nature is a key advantage. Its extensive support for diverse web technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Selenium HQ?
Selenium is easy to install and mostly free, so there's no need for a license. This lack of costs makes it an attractive option.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
SeleniumHQ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, experitest, Tricentis GmbH, SmartBear Software
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Tricentis, Perforce and others in Performance Testing Tools. Updated: March 2025.
845,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.