Simulate multiple users using a website

Question

I am developing a website (basically a public facing site). How can I simulate multiple users are surfing my site and doing various activities so that I can understand how my site will behave in a real time environment?

I am using Apache server and PHP.

Answer 1

As mentioned in previous posts, you will need a load test tool. The good news is that there are many tools and services in this field: open source load test ones like JMeter and Gatling, commercial one like Loadrunner and Neoload, the bad news is that you have to answer some questions and make some decisions.

One key decision you need to make is whether to test your application in the lab or in the cloud.

• cloud based testing: Blazemeter, soasta, neustar ...
• in-lab testing: JMeter, Gatling, Neoload, loadrunner, webperformer ....

In addition, you need to answer the following questioins:

• how many virtual clients you want to emulate to stress the server

• how much budget do you have

• how complex is the web application

• how much skills do the tester(s) have.

If you have high budget, complex web application and testers with good skills (like a developer), you can consider Loadrunner, NeoLoad.

If you have low budget but your tester(s) have good skills, you can consider Jmeter and Gating.

If you need to emulate lots of virtual clients (say 10000) to stress your complex web site and your tester(s) don't have the skill of a developer/programer, you may want to consider NetGend. There is a blog site where you can find out how complex performance testing can be (like filling HTML forms, extract values from JSON messages etc) and how easy it is on NetGend platform. By the way, you don't need high budget for NetGend.

Good lucky in your load/performance testing!

Answer 2

What you want is a load testing tool, there are several but id check out Neoload. You could also use Selenium and the various way to run selenium tests automatically