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OpenText LoadRunner Professional vs SmartBear LoadNinja comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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...
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
3rd
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
14th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
15th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText LoadRunner Professional is 13.0%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear LoadNinja is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance 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.
Kapil Tarka - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use with good documentation and helpful support
It's a new tool when I compare it with LoadViewer and HP LoadRunner. It needs time to mature. For example, it needs to improve concurrency. When you run a test suite, your scripts will generate some test data. If we are running a banking application and then we are running a full end-to-end suite, there are many actions that need testing. There's a lot of data getting generated. There should be a variable that we can store for later in our later test cases. We need data management and dynamic data generation to be able to capture the data which is generated.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup and installation of the software were very easy and straightforward."
"I appreciate its ability to handle various internal calls and its user-friendly interface."
"It has good protocol coverage."
"It is an advanced tool with multiple options available for the performance system."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create performance test cases quickly and then execute them. It provides a lot of powerful features to do that very efficiently and effectively."
"The reporting is very good in regard to scripting and debugging."
"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 uses high-level languages like Java, CVC, and CCL."
"We are happy with the technical support."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
 

Cons

"The initial start-up of Micro Focus LoadRunner could be improved. When we add 20 or 30 scripts, the refresh is completed one by one. I would like to be able to select all the script at one time, so it can be completed in a single click, reducing the time required."
"The solution must be more user-friendly."
"The solution lacks some form of integration."
"I guess scalability becomes a problem when you use things like TruClients."
"Micro Focus has two separate products for web and mobile applications, which means you have to invest in both."
"If they can make LoadRunner more comprehensive, it would really help."
"The monitoring technology in LoadRunner could be improved. It depends on another tool called SiteScope, but they only took a part of the features of SiteScope. They need to improve on that."
"Support for Microsoft Dynamics needs improvement."
"As we ran the test, we couldn't see the real-time results of how the solution behaved for 200 to 400 virtual users."
"It needs time to mature."
"On a smaller scale, there will be no budget issues, but as we expand to a larger user base, I believe we will face some pricing challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would still consider LoadRunner as an expensive tool and you get a LoadRunner and the Performance Center."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five."
"When you compare the cost of other tools such as NeoLoad and LoadNinja, the cost of LoadRunner is on the expensive side. As a result, we are currently considering going with NeoLoad."
"LoadRunner is more expensive than some competing products."
"LoadRunner Professional is an expensive product."
"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 is on a yearly basis and is relatively expensive."
"It is competing with other products that may cost significantly less or may be available as open-source. Because of that it is relatively expensive."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced."
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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
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 '...
What do you like most about SmartBear LoadComplete?
SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement.
What needs improvement with SmartBear LoadComplete?
SmartBear LoadNinja presented issues around some use cases that we wanted to do. We were using the solution to simulate using a browser and to give some browser access to our use case for multiple ...
What advice do you have for others considering SmartBear LoadComplete?
For API, we were previously using JMeter, which is an open-source solution. Overall, I rate SmartBear LoadNinja a seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
SmartBear LoadComplete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Falafel Software
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText LoadRunner Professional vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.