LoadRunner is the preferred choice for many of the world’s most successful businesses. Developed by OpenText (formerly Micro Focus, HP, and Mercury Interactive), LoadRunner has been a staple in the software testing industry since 1994.
Despite what some might think, LoadRunner is not a single performance testing tool but a family of world-class load performance testing solutions. The family has recently undergone a name change that you may not be familiar with, so we are sharing the old and new names:
- LoadRunner Developer
- New name: OpenText Performance Engineering for Developers
- Summary: Developers can create and run scripts from their IDE, shifting performance testing left
- LoadRunner Professional
- New name: OpenText Professional Performance Engineering
- Summary: On-premises project-based supporting the widest range of applications and technologies
- LoadRunner Cloud
- New name: OpenText Core Performance Engineering
- Summary: Flexible and fast to deploy, massively scalable cloud-based performance engineering
- LoadRunner Enterprise
- New names: OpenText Enterprise Performance Engineering & OpenText Core Enterprise Performance Engineering
- Summary: All the benefits of LoadRunner Professional in a global and enterprise tool
While these tools serve different purposes and different customer needs, they all share standard features that make them a natural choice for businesses that take system, performance and customer experience seriously.
Today, I will explain why LoadRunner family products are relied on by the largest companies.
Which Companies Choose LoadRunner for Performance Testing?
Companies that rely on speed, scalability, and customer experience choose LoadRunner products. I personally work with organisations in the banking, insurance, payments, large-scale consulting, and gaming sectors.
The OpenText website also includes case studies from the likes of:
- RSA Insurance Group
- Student Loan Company
- Cognizant
- Independent Health
- McGraw Hill
- Sky
6 Reasons Companies Choose LoadRunner for Performance Testing
1. Comprehensive Testing Capabilities
To begin with, the LoadRunner products are proven, scalable, and trusted. They are the performance test tools that all other providers measure themselves against.
If you want to do serious performance testing, you need a tool with broad testing capabilities that cater to complex enterprise environments. LoadRunner tools support performance testing for more technologies and application environments than other performance tools.
From desktop to mobile and web to Web Services. LoadRunner products support 50+ technologies, including SAP, Oracle, MQTT, HTML5, WebSockets, RDP, Citrix, Java, .NET.
This versatility makes the LoadRunner tools ideal for any company with a diverse technology stack.
2. Huge Scalability and Realistic Load Simulation
One of the LoadRunner family’s key strengths is its ability to scale to simulate hundreds, thousands or millions of concurrent users supported by flexible and scalable licence models.
This feature allows companies to accurately assess application scalability and capacity and is crucial for enterprises whose applications must handle high user loads without compromising performance.
3. Advanced Analysis and Reporting
The LoadRunner family’s analysis and detailed reporting features are unmatched. Testers can break processes down into transactions, cross-reference, and overlap metrics from server resources and load test results, providing comprehensive insights into application performance and comparing the latest results to previous results.
This level of detail is invaluable when application performance can make the difference between success or failure in the online battle or when backend infrastructure performance is critical to business success.
4. Integration with Enterprise Tools
Many large companies rely on the LoadRunner family’s seamless integration with IDEs, CI/CD pipelines, open-source test automation tools, monitoring solutions, and source code management systems.
This integration allows for a streamlined testing process within existing development workflows.
In addition, scripts can be reused with minimal change to monitor end-user performance in production.
5. Support for Legacy Systems
Many enterprises often have complex IT ecosystems that include legacy systems. The LoadRunner family’s support for a wide range of protocols and technologies, including those used in older applications, makes it the ideal choice for companies that must test modern and legacy systems.
6. Dedicated Support and Resources
The LoadRunner family is a suite of professional, enterprise-grade tools with dedicated support, extensive documentation, and tutorials.
This level of support is crucial for large organisations that require quick issue resolution and expert guidance.
Choose LoadRunner for Comprehensive Performance Testing
The LoadRunner family is the go-to choice for companies that require comprehensive performance testing for complex, large-scale applications.
Whether it’s the free LoadRunner Developer, the easy and versatile LoadRunner Cloud, or the best-in-class LoadRunner Professional or Enterprise, this family of tools packs robust functionality and enterprise-grade capabilities via SaaS or on-premise delivery.
The comprehensive feature set, scalability, advanced analysis capabilities, and support for diverse technologies make the LoadRunner family the preferred choice for many of the world’s largest companies to ensure their applications can perform under pressure.
