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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs SmartBear LoadNinja comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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 Professional Perfo...
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
4th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
13th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
11th
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 February 2026, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 12.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear LoadNinja is 2.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)12.1%
SmartBear LoadNinja2.5%
Other85.4%
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SD
Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy
Experience a decade of seamless performance with robust support
I would like to improve OpenText LoadRunner Professional based on what we discussed in our last discussion, as those points remain similar and applicable. For future updates, I would like to see the same features that people generally prefer. I find that AI functionality in OpenText LoadRunner Professional should be improved and more accessible; if we get a chance to work with that, then we can check how much it helps.
Kapil Tarka - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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

"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."
"My favorite feature in LoadRunner Professional is its ability to group scripts under separate IDs."
"The initial setup and installation of the software were very easy and straightforward."
"It is actually a very good tool because it will support almost all, if not all, industry-standard protocols, and it is also equipped with very nice reporting capabilities, which is why I like it."
"I appreciate its ability to handle various internal calls and its user-friendly interface."
"The most valuable features of Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional are scripting and executing the tests."
"The tool's most valuable features are scripting and automation."
"I recommend LoadRunner Professional as it supports many protocols and applications and is very easy to set up and use."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
"We are happy with the technical support."
 

Cons

"We still have some issues with integration with things like SiteScope which, obviously, being another HPE product should be very straightforward, but there are always issues around that."
"The debugging capability should be improved."
"There should be more integration with more open-source platforms."
"You should be able to use LoadRunner as a single platform. You should be able to have browser based access. You should be able to run enterprise tests."
"Sometimes we are not be able to click on some of the buttons due to the screen mismatching and compatibility issues."
"The tool should consider releasing a SaaS version since it makes more sense nowadays."
"The tool needs to work on capture script feature."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high-quality technical support, I rate the support a one."
"It needs time to mature."
"As we ran the test, we couldn't see the real-time results of how the solution behaved for 200 to 400 virtual users."
"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

"LoadRunner is more expensive than some competing products."
"The price is a bit on the high side, but it is still affordable."
"The pricing model and the software licensing model could be better."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"This is not a cheap product."
"The pricing model, especially when involving partners, could use some improvement."
"LoadRunner Professional's licensing costs are on the higher side, apart from the Community Edition."
"I would still consider LoadRunner as an expensive tool and you get a LoadRunner and the Performance Center."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
Penetration and Neoload Tester at a university with 501-1,000 employees
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
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise66
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?
I have mentioned many advantages about this product, but to discuss disadvantages or areas that could be improved, I would need to consult with my engineers who are working on it. So far I have not...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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 Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.