Introduction to Performance Testing

Performance testing for websites and mobile applications is critical for every developer to deliver the best experience to end users.

This section suggests what to consider when setting up performance testing and is aimed at both new and experienced testers. This segment includes the following topics:

  • Backend Testing: An in-depth look at what a performance test should address while testing websites and mobile applications, and the capabilities of BlazeMeter's testing software.

  • Functional Testing: A summary of a testing approach that verifies that a software application's functions work as intended.

  • Planning Your Tests: The foundation for creating and executing successful tests begins with creating an effective plan.

  • Performance Testing Checklist: A guide that outlines essential steps and considerations for effectively planning, executing, and analyzing performance tests.

  • Performance Testing Process: A review of the process for running performance tests.

  • Define the Test Scope: Tips for establishing clear boundaries and objectives for performance testing initiatives, delineating the specific functionalities, user scenarios, and performance metrics to be assessed.

  • Scripting Your Test: Best practices for creating specific scenarios (called scripts) for performance testing.

  • Preparing For Your Load Test: Planning and setup to ensure all necessary components, including test scripts, virtual users, and testing environments, are configured correctly.

  • KPIs in Performance Testing: Read about identifying and when to use key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure the effectiveness and efficiency of an application or system under various load conditions, providing actionable insights to improve performance and optimize user experience.

  • Monitoring and Post-Test Analysis: How to use the results of your performance tests and to continue to monitor the performance of your website or application.

  • More about Performance Testing: Extra tips and concepts in performance testing that can help you improve your performance testing capabilities.

What is Performance Testing?

Performance testing is a fairly general term that can be applied to many aspects of your website or application. However, they all aim to determine the usability, scalability and reliability of a piece of software.

Performance testing enables you to identify, and resolve, two main types of issues that are highly important for any modern application, whether mobile or web-based:

  1. Length of load times (high response time issues)
  2. Failures in loading certain features (increased failure rate under load)

These issues can be caused by various issues and performance testing enables you to determine the actual cause in order to resolve them and bring your application up-to-speed with potential uses cases.

Importance Of Performance Testing

There are several reasons that you should consider performance testing your application. Some of those reasons are technical, but perhaps the most important is ensuring your web application, website, and server are all acting as expected under increased load.

Regular performance tests helps ensure your website performs at its highest level, resulting in better uptime, less maintenance, and greater user interactivity while on site.

This investment, while taking considerable time to build, can have real, long-term benefits for your business, including great user experiences that directly results in return customers.

Basic benefits of undergoing performance testing include:

  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Better overall customer experiences
  • Higher quality applications
  • Reduced risk of system downtime
  • Implementing performance patches before taking your product live
  • Eliminating scalability issues
  • Benchmarking tools for performance engineering teams

As mentioned, many companies leverage performance testing as a risk mitigation mechanism. There's nothing worse than having your web property crash under load while launching a new product, or promoting your website.

Below is a list of the most common types of performance tests associated with risk mitigation, the purpose they serve, and the types of problems they aim to identify:

Endurance Tests:

  • Verify that the application can perform at a high level over a long time period.
  • Verify and attend to any memory leaks related to past issues.

  • Address all outstanding issues and eliminate any new issues that appear as a result of heavy load for an extended period of time.

Component Level Tests :

  • Confirm that individual components of an application are fine-tuned and adjusted for peak performance.
  • Certify that component integrations do not cause any issues within the system.

Stress Tests:

  • Verify if an application can perform under peak conditions.
  • Identify how an application responds under these peak conditions.

Capacity Tests:

  • Check intended performance goals and compare them against actual results during peak load times.
  • Validate whether business requirements are met by the application.

Comparison Tests:

  • Check for performance boosts to new application versions and compare them to past versions.
  • Compare web properties to the competition.