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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 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
6.4
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
11th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
10th
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 July 2025, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 14.3%, up from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear LoadNinja is 1.9%, up from 1.3% 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

"It provides clients with an understanding of application and system performance."
"The number of protocols that it supports, and especially, for example, when it talks about SAP GUI-based performance testing."
"I would definitely recommend OpenText LoadRunner Professional to other users."
"There are various languages that they allow those programs to be written in, whether you want to use Java or something else."
"Enables us to test most of the products and projects that we have across all the different technologies, without having to look at other tools."
"What we like the most is that it integrates with UC."
"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."
"It uses high-level languages like Java, CVC, and CCL."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"We are happy with the technical support."
 

Cons

"The reporting and GUI have room for improvement."
"Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional can improve the implementation of digital areas, such as digital testing, UI and native application, and native mobile applications."
"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 solution uses a lot of memory and then it dies. It's difficult to work with the solution sometimes when you run a scenario it dies. They need to make the solution lighter somehow."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"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."
"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."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five."
"There is an annual license required to use Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. There are not any additional costs other than the licensing fees to use it."
"I would still consider LoadRunner as an expensive tool and you get a LoadRunner and the Performance Center."
"LoadRunner is more expensive than some competing products."
"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
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
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?
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 th...
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 Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.