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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs OpenText Silk Performer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

OpenText Professional Perfo...
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (2nd)
OpenText Silk Performer
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 12.3%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Silk Performer is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Load Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)12.3%
OpenText Silk Performer1.6%
Other86.1%
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SD
Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy
Experience a decade of seamless performance with robust support
I would like to improve OpenText LoadRunner Professional based on what we discussed in our last discussion, as those points remain similar and applicable. For future updates, I would like to see the same features that people generally prefer. I find that AI functionality in OpenText LoadRunner Professional should be improved and more accessible; if we get a chance to work with that, then we can check how much it helps.
SR
Principal Software Architect at OpenText
Scripting and basic test executions are good features; configuring the workload for tests is easy
In terms of areas of improvement, I would say the Silk Performance Explorer tool, which is used for monitoring and analysis, can be improved because that's where we spend most of our time when we're analyzing the test data. Any enhancements that can be provided in the monitoring sphere would be useful. When you have a large amount of data the tool struggles with it and will sometimes crash, or there may be issues with too many metrics being collected when running a test. The interface for the scripting could be more feature-rich. Integration with tools like Prometheus or Grafana where we can visualize the data would be great. As things stand, we have to use one monitoring tool to visualize data and another for visualizing the test metrics. Integration would enable us to see the metrics from Silk and correlate that with the metrics from other servers or other processes we're monitoring. It would save having to look at Silk data and server metrics separately. It's the way things are going with newer tools. I think the solution is being phased out by Micro Focus and their emphasis is focused more on LoadRunner. We haven't seen much development in the last few years.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I'm really happy with what they’re giving me for what I do, but because I don't do performance monitoring or performance testing using LoadRunner, I'm not completely aware of everything else, but for what I do it's a great tool for me."
"The most valuable features of Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional are scripting and executing the tests."
"The solution helps my clients save time, it is easier to capture reports and improves product quality, helps to identify customer defects during performance tests and reduces workloads, improves my client's user interaction, and reduces peak load times."
"LoadRunner Professional's best features are that it's easy to capture scenarios and create scripts for testing, the testing runs smoothly with small resources, and it's very easy to create reports with a variety of indicators."
"It helped our organization to run successful performance testing cycles and to identify the bottlenecks of the application."
"Because we're a telecommunications company with millions of subscribers, we run very high volume tests for 24-48 hours, LoadRunner has been very, very stable during these tests and has gotten us results."
"The most valuable feature depends on what we're doing at the time. In the past, the greatest feature was the ability to record and play back to produce a script. Another great feature is that we can monitor the system. They also support many protocols to perform load testing."
"Very useful for finding out how the system responds to load, stress, and normal situations, as well as benchmarking with other industry competitors, it also improved our response time, memory delegation, and CPU delegation, and we used LoadRunner to optimize our database and website."
"A good monitoring tool, simple to script and easy to configure."
"We haven't used Silk on any project where it hasn't been able to support whatever we have needed."
 

Cons

"It needs to be easier to use. I know LoadRunner so I think it's a tool that's difficult to understand."
"In terms of improvement, it lacks mobile testing features present in some competitors, like GitMatters, which I find valuable."
"The debugging capability should be improved."
"The only scenario we see a complexity is when we have single-page applications where JavaScript is talking to the server and coming back. That's the only scenario where we find some difficulties."
"The solution uses a lot of memory and then it dies. It's difficult to work with the solution sometimes when you run a scenario it dies."
"Technical support is challenging. We have premier support for ALM and Performance Center, and we usually get inexperienced engineers when we contact tech support."
"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."
"LoadRunner is a well-rounded, polished tool – but it does need more improvement when it comes to it application of load, more flexibility mid-test would be nice."
"If you have a large amount of data, the solution can struggle."
"When you have a large amount of data the tool struggles with it and will sometimes crash, or there may be issues with too many metrics being collected when running a test."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is reasonable. We pay the cost, but we have everything. We have a big set of licenses for SAP and other applications. We have all kinds of licenses."
"Pricing depends on our choices because it depends on what type of protocol we are getting, what type of licensing we are getting, and what kind of relationships we have with HP and Micro Focus."
"LoadRunner Professional's licensing costs are on the higher side, apart from the Community Edition."
"The licensing model is complex. You have to pick up the protocol and the number of concurrent users, and then select the level of concurrent users. For example, there would be one price for 100 to 500 users and another for 500 to 2000 users. If you choose two protocols, then you will have to pay twice the amount depending on the number of concurrent users."
"There is an annual license required to use Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. There are not any additional costs other than the licensing fees to use it."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"I don't know the licensing cost, but I think that you would get a discount for normal usage. I think there are different yearly options for different types of usage. It is not only how many users, but also whether it is shareable or not and other criteria involved in each feature. There are additional fees for the users and hardware linked to the processing."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
Penetration and Neoload Tester at a university with 501-1,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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 helps us understand and meet SLAs.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I have mentioned many advantages about this product, but to discuss disadvantages or areas that could be improved, I would need to consult with my engineers who are working on it. So far I have not...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
Micro Focus Silk Performer, Silk Performer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
University of Colorado, Medidata, Monash University
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, OpenText, Tricentis and others in Load Testing Tools. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.