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Ask HN: What Web server load testing tools are you using?

8 points by BerislavLopac ↗ HN
A Web developer should be able to tell how does their server perform under heavy loads before having those loads in production. Which tools are other hackers using? Which would you recommend as the best? And what makes those stand out? Thanks!

6 comments

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bartonfink
I've used JPerf before, and found it adequate for what I needed. As I understand it, it basically wraps JUnit test cases in independent threads and lets them all run. Depending on your server, this approach might give you the load you need.
megamark16
If it's a simple public facing site I'll throw ab (Apache Benchmark) at it. I've used Pylot for more advanced stuff, although I know it's not particularly mainstream.
iworkforthem
These are the 2 load testing tools I used so far.

Grinder - able to record the test and customize, codes are in python.

Selenium - record in firefox, able to run the tests onto various web browsers.

eengstrom
+1 for Jmeter

I've been focusing specifically in performance and scalability for the last decade. The vast majority of problems that expose themselves under load or many-request scenarios are blatantly obvious in a profiler or tracing data access patterns. I recommend you start there, better use of time.