If you are building and shipping a new software product that will be loved by lots of users, you have to test it thoroughly. There are various ways of testing the software before releasing it so
that users get a bug-free and seamless experience while carving their way through the application. When an application is being developed, its target audience is already determined, and how much market share the application will enjoy is also estimated. When the traffic is estimated, it is time to test the application and its performance so that the app does not lag or take a prolonged time to serve user queries when launched. Moreover, it is also important to understand and optimize the application after a certain point. We are Software testing company in Ahmedabad that can help you in carrying out this activity. If you don’t have an experienced team at your company, you can easily outsource this to Indian companies. But before you reach out to Load and performance testing companies, it is better to understand the difference between the two, which service to use, and when it should be used.
Let’s start with load testing.
What is Load Testing? Every system is architected based on a target audience count and usage estimate. Load testing is a process of testing your applications/systems under a specific level of load. Suppose you have architected a system that can easily handle loads of up to 1,000 users at a time. In load testing, you try to put the load onto the system and see how it reacts under the estimated loads as well as loads beyond that. Load testing helps in understanding how many requests can be processed by the current architecture and whether the metrics are as expected or if any changes are required in the architecture.
Advantages of Load Testing
Reduced Application Downtime
In most systems, downtime occurs when the system is not architected efficiently and is not load-tested correctly. If you do load testing correctly, you can understand the requirements of your
system/application well, and you can reduce the application downtime by correctly provisioning resources.
Find Inefficient Modules
Certain code blocks and modules are doing a lot more work than other parts, and there can be instances when they are slowing down the system. In load testing, you test the application entirely, and you can find which modules are not performing well and what can be done to fix their performance under heavy load.
Security
When systems crash, the resources are often exposed, and there are memory leaks or many such things that can compromise the application’s security. Moreover, when applications are
constantly working at high loads, there can be security issues if they are not load-tested perfectly. By load testing your applications, you can ensure that they don’t crash under heavy
loads and that there are no memory leaks, too.
Having known about load testing, let’s have a look at what performance testing is.
What is Performance Testing?
Performance testing is a wrapper that covers both load testing and stress testing processes. It is used to verify a system’s performance across various levels and conditions. Moreover, performance testing also encompasses monitoring of vital metrics of a system. Performance testing is primarily concerned with the following four metrics for the developed system/application.
Reliability:
It is the measure of how reliable the system is under varying load levels and conditions.
Scalability
This metric shows how scalable the system is whenever there is a need for improved performance.
Stability
This metric shows how stable the application is. It can be identified by seeing the CPU, memory, and other usage of the system across different levels.
Response Time
Response time is the metric that shows how much time the application takes to serve any request and provide a valid response to it. Performance Testing is used to find bottlenecks in application performance and fix them with code changes, hardware modifications, or any other ways.
Advantages of Performance Testing
Promotes Efficient Utilization of Resources
Performance testing helps you identify the vital metrics of a system. With this testing, you can see that if your provisioned CPU is being underutilized, you can swap it with a lower-powered
CPU and save big on costs.
Ensures Stability
Performance testing can help developers and architects ensure that their systems are stable and accurate across different load levels and performances. It also helps to find and fix performance bottlenecks before they become bigger issues in production.
After knowing about performance testing and load testing, it is better to make a comparison of the two to understand them better, as many software performance testing service providers
will persuade you to think that both are the same.
Difference Between Load Testing and Performance Testing
Scope
Performance testing is a wider item, and it encompasses both load testing and stress testing, whereas load testing has a lesser scope as it is a part of the performance testing process. In performance testing, the applications are tested entirely on various parameters and metrics, whereas in load testing, the applications are tested only for their load.
Focus Area
The major difference between load testing and performance testing is their focus area. While load testing focuses solely on how the application/system performs under various levels of loads, performance testing focuses on the reliability, stability, scalability, and user experience of a system across performance benchmarks.
Cost
Load testing is costly to perform as multiple devices and environments need to be simulated to perform load testing accurately. On the other hand, in performance testing, you are generally
benchmarking and noticing a system’s performance levels during different times and processes, so it is much cheaper.
Which to use When?
When your aim is to understand the performance of your application and identify and fix performance bottlenecks, you should definitely aim for performance testing, as it will give you the true picture of your system/application’s performance. On the other hand, if you are looking to ship products that can stay intact across all load conditions and you want to be sure that your application’s performance will not drop at any load levels, you should look for load testing services.
Coming to an end, now you have a good understanding of load and performance testing, and you should use this knowledge to optimize your software products for high-demand conditions
so that your users get an excellent experience.
