What is our primary use case?
We do have an address to the client protocol we are using, and web streaming and web services.
What is most valuable?
With LoadRunner, 80% of the cases will be supported. It has everything. It supports most features. It's very feature-rich.
The solution offers helpful guidelines and has good documentation.
What needs improvement?
While they keep on working on improving the tool level, the tool has instability in terms of loading and processing. There are a lot of times hanging issues up until version 11 or 11.2. After that, the productions are pretty stable.
They changed the GUI. They had wanted to change the GUI to improve the look and feel. However, since that time, we see a lot of hanging issues.
The implementation process can be a bit complex. Even with 15 years of experience, I have trouble finding things.
They need to make scalability functionality better.
We've raised hundreds of bugs in the Ajax TruClient protocol. I don't know how they are doing testing. However, they should test it in other scenarios. When you're releasing a protocol, the test coverage should be more. They need to do a better job at releasing a full product instead of releasing something half-done and fixing it along the way.
The solution is expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution does have some instability and hanging issues. It has to be improved as it is causing a business loss for them.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, it has to improve in certain protocols. If you take Ajax TruClient, the memory consumption was very huge in the terms of the particular protocol. That needs to be somewhere where we can minimize the memory consumption to have more virtual users run on the system.
People need to buy too many load generators to run their tests. Even for file users, we need a lot of load generators to run that.
We have seven to eight team members using the solution right now.
We have been using it for the past 10 years with the same client. We have all the version upgrades happening from LoadRunner ALM products onwards. We went into the ALM Enterprise. And we were the people who raised hundreds of bugs in the Ajax TruClient protocol.
How are customer service and support?
We've dealt with lots of bugs, and we scheduled a meeting for support. They take some time to get to a solution. They'll sometimes take months to get a solution in place.
I understand it is not a small thing when you are launching a new protocol and all. However, they should have, before launching, fewer bugs. They need to take care of a lot of things before launching the product.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've used JMeter, WebLOAD, and NeoLoad.
While Micro Focus' competition does offer a lot of tools, this solution does a better job of laying out guidelines. There are examples and use cases, and they respond to questions. Those are the reasons people are still using them.
How was the initial setup?
The installation process is a little complex. There has been confusion in terms of the Enterprise version and whatever they have in the exhibition suite. We call it ALM. The UI is not as user-friendly now with the changes they have made. It would help if they simplified their interface a bit. It might make implementation easier.
It used to be simpler. Now we have a separate team that handles the setup.
We have two people available that can deploy and maintain the product.
What was our ROI?
We don't see an ROI as we mainly recommend the tool and clients use it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's a costly tool. When you are paying for something, there are expectations that it will work properly.
I'd rate the affordability at a two out of five.
You do need to buy a few extra features that are not included in the main cost.
What other advice do I have?
We are customers.
If a client has a budget, I would recommend the solution. It is a good tool. However, there are stability issues, and it does have a complex UI. It's good if you have specific protocols and specific requirements. When that is the case, there may be no other tool available.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
There are some spelling mistakes, kindly correct this please.