By 2029, it’s estimated that the automation testing market is going to reach $60 billion. As we witness a steady growth of 19.6% CAGR, this number comes from the rapid expansion of continuous testing, rising automation for web and mobile applications, and an increased focus on automating test data. This makes web application performance testing non-negotiable.
What is Web Application Performance Testing?
Web application performance testing refers to the process that evaluates web app behavior under different conditions such as concurrent user activity, stress, and load. This type of testing helps testers in recognizing bottlenecks, validating the scalability of an application with growing user demand, and ensuring consistency in UX.
The goal here is to assess resource usage, scalability, stability, and responsiveness under different real-world scenarios.
Importance of Web Performance Testing
Web performance testing enhances user experience as unresponsive, slow applications increase bounce rates. It also enables the application to cater to peak traffic without degrading performance, increase reliability by identifying points of failure, and optimize UX by detecting and fixing poor server configurations, memory leaks, and inefficient code.
All of this combined gives organizations a huge competitive advantage.
Types of Web Application Performance Testing
If you’re looking forward to building scalable and resilient web applications, it’s crucial to get a clear grasp on the different types of web application performance testing. Let’s take a look at the breakdown.
- UI Performance Testing For Web Apps
UI performance testing measures how responsive the front-end components are. It tests UI transitions, JavaScript execution, and browser rendering times to ensure a responsive and smooth UI across different browsers and devices
- Load Testing Web Application
Load testing websites or web applications determines system performance under preset user loads as it checks parameters such as system stability, throughput, and response time. It also identifies the maximum users that a system can offer support to without any degradation in performance whatsoever.
- Stress Testing
Stress testing is responsible for assessing the behavior of a system under peak or extreme load conditions. It tests failover mechanisms, and recovery ability to identify breaking points as well as recovery time.
- Spike Testing
Spike testing evaluates the ability of an application to handle massive or sudden traffic spikes. It tests stability, elasticity and auto scaling under traffic rises to ensure responsiveness of an app even when load changes are abrupt.
- Endurance Testing
It verifies system performance over extended time ranges by testing long-term degradations and performance, database connection, stability, and memory leaks. As a result, it ensures consistency in performance without any compromise over time.
- Scalability Testing
The purpose of scalability testing is to determine how effective an application is while scaling up or down as per requirement. It tests the impact on performance, increased user base or hardware resources to recognize any performance bottlenecks in the strategy and organization used for scaling.
Read In More Detail: Types of App Performance Testing
Web Application Performance Testing Metrics
As we already know, the effectiveness of performance testing of web applications strongly relies on quantifiable and crystal clear metrics. Some of the most common ones are:
- Latency: It refers to the time delay in the transmission of data, especially when we are talking about distributed systems.
- Memory and CPU utilization: Putting the system under load to measure the consumption of its resources.
- Error Rate: It refers to the frequency of requests that failed because of server errors, timeouts, and so on.
- Throughput: It refers to requests per second or similar amount of data that the system processes in a given time frame.
- Response Time: It refers to the time the system takes to provide a response to a request.
How to Test Web App Performance
If you are looking to enhance accuracy and ensure actionable insights, it’s crucial to follow a structured approach towards web app performance testing. Let’s take a look at the breakdown of the process.
Step 1: Defining Performance Objectives
The first step is to establish KPIs like the ability to cater to a certain number of concurrent users, percentage of requests in a certain time frame, and so on.
Step 2: Designing Test Scenarios
Identify critical workflows such as API interactions, Checkout or add-to-cart, product search, user login, and so on. Following that, it’s crucial to ensure that these scenarios successfully mimic real world usage.
Step 3. Preparing The Test Environment
Preparing the test environment includes using production-like environments, setting up monitoring tools for databases, APIs and servers, and isolating or mocking external dependencies.
Step 4: Choosing The Right Web App Performance Testing Tools
Depending on your tech stack, type of web application, and in-house expertise, it’s crucial to choose the right kind of tools. Preferably, businesses should opt for real browser/device testing to make the most out of their testing process.
Step 5: Test Execution
Gradually ramp up traffic after beginning with baseline tests. If applicable, introduce endurance loads and spikes. After that, make sure that you collect all the necessary metrics in real time.
Step 6: Result Analysis
Be on the lookout for network, DB, or CPU bottlenecks and error patterns. Use APM tools that capture various App performance metrics for RCA to check for latency spikes.
Step 7: Optimization Followed By Retesting
Here, the QA professionals responsible for fixing the identified issues. Take care of them and ensure retesting for validating the fixes. Leverage integration for automating recording scenarios.
Top 3 Web Application Performance Testing Tools
Since we don’t want our readers to feel overwhelmed with hundreds of web application, performance testing tools available out there, here’s a curated and concise list of the top three tools that will help organizations reach their web app performance goals. Let’s take a look.
1. Pcloudy
This next-gen Digital Experience Testing platform offers access to a wide array of real browsers and devices to perform cloud-based web application testing. Unlike most other tools that focus on simulating traffic, Pcloudy encourages end-to-end performance validation across both mobile and web platforms in real world environments.
The Performance Experience testing platform captures 60+ app performance metrics that can help with quick RCA and fast resolutions. The platform also features various types of testing like API Testing, AI based Testing, Synthetic monitoring, etc.
Key Features:
- Offers support for cross-browser testing and REST APIs for scalability and automation.
- Smart reporting, thanks to logs, realtime video streams, and dashboards offers a detailed performance comparison.
- Screenshots and video logs support real-time monitoring of sessions.
Built-in metrics for battery usage, memory, CPU, and load time. - Network simulation for Wi-Fi, custom bandwidth, 2G, 3G, etc.
- Performance testing based on geolocation on a real device cloud hosting more than 5000+ combinations of browsers and devices.
- Seamless integration with Bamboo, Azure DevOps, and Jenkins
2. Gatling
Gatling is a developer-friendly open-source load testing tool that easily integrates with current DevOps workflows. It features a Scala-based DSL enabling testers to write a variety of powerful scenarios for performance testing as code, which further ensures scalability and automation.
Key Features:
- Real-time visualization of metrics and detailed HTML reports featuring trends and graphs.
- Scripting of performance tests with the help of a code-first DSL.
- Both Enterprise and open-source versions are available.
3. Apache JMeter
Apache JMeter is another open-source and versatile tool that tests web app performance across different protocols. Its GUI-based interface and extensible architecture makes it ideal for conventional load testing setups.
Key Features:
- CLI and GUI test execution modes.
- Scripting support with real-time monitoring and generation of reports.
- Extended capabilities with plug-in ecosystem
- Listeners, assertions, and samplers make test plans customizable.
Insightful, Seamless & Inclusive Real Device Performance Testing for Web Apps With Pcloudy
Pcloudy differentiates itself from millions of other web app performance testing tools out there by making testing user-centric, insightful, seamless and inclusive on real devices. It offers highly secure testing on a Dev environment without the need for any configuration or setup.
Let’s take a look at how this platform is emerging as a game changing catalyst for testing web application performance.
1. Comprehensive Browser List
You can connect and test web apps on different Windows and Mac browsers without any limitations. Just select the browser type, operating system, version, and screen resolution according to your requirements.
2. Seamless Integrations
It integrates seamlessly with Selenium, Puppeteer, Playwright TestNG and other popular frameworks to automate web testing.
3. Accelerated Web App Testing with Parallel Execution
Users can simultaneously conduct multiple tests by leveraging the parallel execution feature to reduce time to Market and maximize productivity.
4. Detailed Reporting and Analytics
One click and Pcloudy generates a comprehensive report of the entire test session. This way, testers can cater to any areas of concern.
5. Real Time Interaction
Select your device environment and validate features, conduct exploratory testing, and scrutinize UI elements in real time.
6. Inclusive Accessibility Testing
Pcloudy empowers users from all accessibility requirements to have a seamless experience using web applications by enabling universal access, thanks to WCAG 2.1 compliance that enhances your reach and expands access.
Also Check Out: App Testing Features that Elevates Web Experiences
Web Application Performance Testing Challenges
While application performance testing is incredibly effective, it does come with its fair share of challenges. Here are some common hurdles.
Accurate Simulation of Real World Conditions
It can be tough to simulate a diverse range of geographies, networks, and device types. There can be some discrepancies and outcomes since bot behavior differs from humans to some extent.
Test Data Management Complexities
It’s crucial to use clean, realistic data sets. Data contamination or reuse might invalidate tests.
Integration Issues
There are a plenty of tools that haven’t been initially designed with the intent to automate later. While they do their best to adapt, the maintenance of test environments and test scripts can turn out to be quite challenging in fast paced CI/CD setups.
Excessive Dependency On Third-Party Services Or Plugins
APIs, analytics, tools, and CDNs are the most prone to becoming points of failure. Since there are always chances that they might introduce noise and unpredictability into test outcomes, it’s important to go with the tool that offers a comprehensive set of testing features under a single umbrella.
Web Application Performance Testing Best Practices
Check out some of these expert tips and best practices to make the best of your web application performance testing efforts. The proven courses of action known to enhance performance testing include:
- Testing Early and Continuously
Opt for a shift left testing lifecycle and make sure that you integrate your performance testing with CI/CD pipelines.
- Using Realistic User Journeys
Concentrate on vital paths such as search, payment, and registration. Always make sure that you’re including heavy usage scenarios and edge cases.
- Using a Combination Of Real User and Synthetic Testing
While synthetic tests are excellent for simulating traffic, it’s important to include real user monitoring to capture the behavior of the end user in production.
- Close Monitoring
One of the most crucial best practices is to track memory/ server CPU, third-party APIs, Network calls, and application logs. For deep observability, leverage APM tools.
- Keeping Stakeholders Updated
QA teams need to have their stakeholders in the loop by providing them with actionable reports and tying performance metrics to page abandonment, conversion rates, and other business KPIs.
Conclusion
As we have already deduced by now, web app performance testing isn’t an optional process. In fact, it has become a core pillar to deliver a flawless UX in the current-day digital landscape. Whether your organization is building a killer SaaS product or catering to a high-traffic and popular website, systematic web application performance testing ensures high scalability, stability, and speed under different conditions.
As long as you have the right metrics, a comprehensive tool like Pcloudy along with testing strategies will accelerate the performance of your web applications and make them future-proof against any performance pitfalls that might come your way!
FAQs
How is performance testing different from functional testing?
While functional testing confirms whether the features continue to work as per expectations, performance testing evaluates stability and responsiveness of an application under load.
Can you automate performance testing?
Yes, it’s possible to automate performance testing by facilitating integration into CI/CD pipelines with the help of tools such as Pcloudy, Apache JMeter, and Gatling.
How often should you execute performance testing?
Performance testing has to be a continuous process and should ideally be conducted before releases, during times of high traffic, and after every major code change.
