Two tools for quick and easy web application load testing during development
hanselman.comI usually use Apache bench:
That's what I use. Simple and effective.
wrk is pretty awesome for non-distributed testing. It supports lua scripting so it actually can be used to do tests that bust caches or run other custom logic.
If you need a more sophisticated product, I've used jmeter before. It is distributed, supports all kinds of protocols, scenarios, etc. If you want to stress test a checkout flow it can be good. It's kind of an ugly mess though.
wrk is capable of generating a lot more load than other tools I've tested (e.g. ApacheBench). If your web server can handle a ton of requests/sec, wrk is the only thing I've found which can push your server hard. Highly recommended.
We use Tsung.
I like Artillery: https://artillery.io/
I've had a lot of success using Bees With Machine Guns
https://github.com/newsapps/beeswithmachineguns/
(Also, the name is awesome)
The only thing about these 2 tools is that they can only ran on Windows. Which can be a barrier for most developers. We run mac ubuntu and redhat everyday. Sometimes it's even hard to get a windows machine inside company.
Hanselman is a Microsoft employee and a luminary in the .NET community. The audience for his blog is definitely Windows-focused.
Locust is really good, allows custom scripts for user behaviour, and works well spun up on multiple cloud instances http://locust.io/
I had a need to test random requests, so I built this: http://loadme.socialtalents.com/
Enter something like: http://domain.com/article/$RND(1000,9999)} to get random urls every time.
Please note, that website needs to be public accessible.
I also like Siege. A very simple tool: https://www.joedog.org/siege-home/
We use loader.io, but am looking for ways to load test websockets which loader.io doesn't support