In this tutorial, we will be studying a widely used performance testing tool – JMeter. We will find the answer to this question – What is JMeter? and also study its advantages and limitation.
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What is JMeter?
JMeter is a Java-based desktop application that can be used for performance testing of different kinds of client-server applications like websites, web services, databases, FTP servers, etc. It is an open-source tool provided by Apache with no licensing cost.
Types of applications that can be tested by JMeter
- Websites – HTTP and HTTPS
- Web Services – REST and SOAP
- Database Servers
- FTP Servers
- LDAP Servers
- Mail Servers – SMTP, POP3, IMAP
- Shell Scripts
- TCP Servers
Advantages of JMeter
- Free of cost – It is an open-source product with zero licensing cost.
- Can load test different kinds of applications – It can be used for performance testing of all kinds of applications ranging from – Web applications, web services, databases, LDAP, shell scripts, etc.
- Platform independent – Since, it is 100% Java-based, so it is platform-independent and can run on multiple platforms.
- Record and Playback feature – It provides record and playback options along with drag and drop features which makes it easier and faster to create scripts.
- Customizable – Since JMeter is open source, developers can customize its source code as per their specific requirements.
- Supports distributed load testing – It supports distributed load testing features in which we can create a master-slave set up for carrying out load tests on multiple machines.
- Good community support – It has many online tutorials and helping community support. It also has freely available plugins that help in different aspects of script creation and analysis.
Limitations of JMeter
- Scripting in JMeter requires some level of expertise and understanding of different test plan elements, regular expressions, session handling, etc.
- It does not have a network visualization feature unlike other performance testing tools like Loadrunner.
- A single normal configuration machine is not sufficient for carrying out load test with a large number of users. In such cases, either a very high configuration cloud machine is required or distributed testing is performed.
- It does not support ajax, javascript and flash, neither it renders web elements like a browser.
- It provides very limited real-time test monitoring capability as compared to other tools.
That’s all we have in this post, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Check out the complete – JMeter tutorial.
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