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Akamai CloudTest vs OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs k6 Open Source comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Akamai CloudTest is 3.1%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of k6 Open Source is 3.9%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 13.4%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Load Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)13.4%
k6 Open Source3.9%
Akamai CloudTest3.1%
Other79.6%
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Vinod Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Is user-friendly and offers live monitoring
Extending the same cloud tool to make it app native so that it can help with device performance testing towards HTTP requests and responses. If you can have a front-end tool like Google's Core Web Vitals, it would be great. If you have some integration with Google's Core Web Vitals, it would be great. I want the tool to have IP spoofing because whenever you do load testing, you will have a little bit of static IP based on a particular load generator. If we have an option of just making the real-time scenario, like having IP spoofing, and the range of IPs dynamically gets changed with the request just to mimic the real-time user behavior, then it would be a good improvement. Having integration to APM tools, like Dynatrace or AppDynamics, the way we have in the load tools, would be good.
NalinGoonawardana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good scalability and has the ability to integrate with various systems and services
One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter. While k6 is a powerful tool for performance testing, it leans heavily towards coding. Having a GUI, even if it is a low-code approach, could make it more accessible to a broader audience. It would be beneficial to strike a balance where basic tasks can be performed graphically through a user-friendly interface, while still allowing the flexibility for more complex operations through code, similar to how JMeter operates. This could enhance the user experience and make k6 more approachable for those who may not be as comfortable with scripting.
HelenSague - PeerSpot reviewer
A sophisticated tool that supports many languages and works with all kinds of applications
I do not have any big challenges with LoadRunner. I only have some issues with load generators. It is a very common issue, and I hope it will be resolved in the latest release. For example, when we start to run our tests, users get the message that the load generator exceeded 80% of the CPU utilization. Even when the number of users is less, we get these messages. I am trying to resolve it, but it is not going. It is annoying. It is not a failure, but I hope that it will be resolved. IBM WebSphere MQ testing can be a bit challenging. It can handle that, but I hope that they will build more and more capabilities. We do a huge amount of testing for messaging. Just like aviation, the railway industry is based on messaging. There is messaging to build trains and messaging to create some bills. There are many train movements. Everything involves messaging. I wish that it will be developed more for IBM WebSphere testing. Monitoring is okay, but for testing, I currently have to create Java users. I have to load a lot of libraries from IBM WebSphere and so on.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This is an awesome performance testing tool for web based applications, able to generate load multiple geographies, dynamic ramp-up to any levels of virtual users."
"The level of support is quite good and the integration is also very flexible."
"The tool is very user-friendly, so you can save a lot of time in terms of your preparation activities."
"The solution is very stable."
"From my own experience, if you're talking about load testing and performance testing then definitely you should go for CloudTest. Because when we compared CloudTest with Performance Center, cost wise it was a better solution. It is easy to use as well, and you can definitely get an automation engineer or a performance engineer with very little exposure to any programming or scripting language such as JavaScript. I would definitely recommend this solution and would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten."
"The tool's big advantage is that it is more performance-test oriented for experienced testers who know what they are doing. In a normal working setup, performance engineers frequently work with DevOps and development teams. For these teams, k6 Open Source's syntax is much simpler and easier to understand and apply in the working process."
"The standout feature of k6 is its strong focus on API performance testing."
"The front loader and the reporting features are the most valuable aspects of OpenText LoadRunner Professional."
"The load testing, reporting, and scripting features are all valuable features."
"I like LoadRunner's ability to use multiple protocols. That's one of the greatest features along with the ability to test service calls between the app and server."
"It is an advanced tool with multiple options available for the performance system."
"It is actually a very good tool because it will support almost all, if not all, industry-standard protocols, and it is also equipped with very nice reporting capabilities, which is why I like it."
"It provides clients with an understanding of application and system performance."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create performance test cases quickly and then execute them. It provides a lot of powerful features to do that very efficiently and effectively."
"Its variety of testing tools for different applications is of great benefit, as well as its integration capabilities with other testing and monitoring solutions."
 

Cons

"The test clip should be more user-friendly."
"Akamai cloud test integration into our current CI/CD pipelines (i.e.) identify and resolve the issues during the sprint phase which helps in delivering an absolute product and reduces time to market/release."
"In terms of improvement, I think integration of these tools with the leading EPM tools would be good. It would help to seamlessly integrate to Dynatrace or AppDynamics to understand what the profiling looks like when generating a load."
"It's a manual process to whitelist respective internal IPs in coordination with web operations team to access Soasta. Availability of any standardized tool from Soasta will make setup process easy."
"If we have an option of just making the real-time scenario, like having IP spoofing, and the range of IPs dynamically gets changed with the request just to mimic the real-time user behavior, then it would be a good improvement."
"One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter."
"I would like to see better-licensing costs."
"There is room for improvement of the pilot processing, the dump analysis, and forwarding results based on the dump analysis. We have a generator, root controller, different agents, and an analyzer, so all of these are very important when it comes to LoadRunner."
"Sometimes, we aren't able to see an accurate page view while replying and executing the script. When you are navigating the application side by side, it needs to be displayed on a random viewer. Sometimes we will get a few applications, and we won't get others."
"The solution needs to reduce its pricing. Right now, it's quite expensive."
"In terms of improvement, it lacks mobile testing features present in some competitors, like GitMatters, which I find valuable."
"LoadRunner experiences high resource utilization. Even though we have machines with higher configurations, I've observed this behavior. Heavy traffic recording results in the tool hanging. So heavy traffic recording makes the tool slow."
"Lacks specific level monitoring."
"There's a reporting part of the cloud that could be improved a little bit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Running cost is very low."
"We have a yearly license, and I would give it a rating of three out of five."
"The tool's price is at an intermediate level. When you compare it with other enterprise load testing tools, it falls under the average category."
Information not available
"The solution's pricing is expensive."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"There is a licensing cost that is expensive."
"The fee for LoadRunner Professional is very high - about US$500 per user."
"The pricing model, especially when involving partners, could use some improvement."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"The price is a bit on the high side, but it is still affordable."
"When you compare the cost of other tools such as NeoLoad and LoadNinja, the cost of LoadRunner is on the expensive side. As a result, we are currently considering going with NeoLoad."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 13, 2014
LoadRunner vs NeoLoad
The six phases of an IT project Enthusiasm Disillusionment Panic Search for the guilty Punishment of the innocent (the performance tester) Praise and rewards for the incompetent non-participants This article has been put together as part of an evaluation of the performance test tools NeoLoad and…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Akamai CloudTest?
Extending the same cloud tool to make it app native so that it can help with device performance testing towards HTTP ...
What is your primary use case for Akamai CloudTest?
I use the solution in my company for load testing. You can say that it is used on the API and then for web page-level...
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai CloudTest?
The tool's very first benefit is zero maintenance. You need not take care of your controller or load generator, so th...
What do you like most about k6 Open Source?
The standout feature of k6 is its strong focus on API performance testing.
What needs improvement with k6 Open Source?
One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter. While k6 is a powerful tool for performanc...
What is your primary use case for k6 Open Source?
k6 Open Source is a powerful tool, especially for API-level performance testing. Its integration capabilities and eas...
What do you like most about Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
When designing a workload model offers a good range of possibilities for creating goal-oriented scenarios, which help...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I would like to improve OpenText LoadRunner Professional based on what we discussed in our last discussion, as those ...
 

Also Known As

SOASTA CloudTest
Load Impact
Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Chester Zoo
rackspace, salesforce.com, IBM, servicenow, Nasdaq, JWT
JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Tricentis, OpenText and others in Load Testing Tools. Updated: August 2025.
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