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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs SmartBear LoadNinja 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 Performance Testing Tools
2nd
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
15th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
11th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 15.3%, up from 14.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear LoadNinja is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)15.3%
SmartBear LoadNinja2.3%
Other82.4%
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Assistant Director at Synapxe
Has enabled my team to identify bottlenecks effectively and deliver reliable performance analysis across projects
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 heard of any significant issues. I can gather specific improvement suggestions from my architect and provide that information later.
Kapil Tarka - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to use with good documentation and helpful support
It's a new tool when I compare it with LoadViewer and HP LoadRunner. It needs time to mature. For example, it needs to improve concurrency. When you run a test suite, your scripts will generate some test data. If we are running a banking application and then we are running a full end-to-end suite, there are many actions that need testing. There's a lot of data getting generated. There should be a variable that we can store for later in our later test cases. We need data management and dynamic data generation to be able to capture the data which is generated.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to do multithreading. That's available in any performance testing tool, but the number of protocols that this particular tool supports has been very good."
"The tool's most valuable features are scripting and automation."
"The feature we've found most valuable for us is the number of protocols available."
"It expedites the process of creating test scripts."
"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."
"This is a stable product - I've dealt with it over the past 15 years and it's stable."
"This is a very comprehensive tool that helped us with performance testing and allowed us to capture the actual performance engineering as well."
"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."
"The most powerful aspect is the ease of use."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"But for now, we are happy with what have been using."
"We are happy with the technical support."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvement, it lacks mobile testing features present in some competitors, like GitMatters, which I find valuable."
"I also use the TrueClient feature for browser-based testing. I found the TrueClient feature to be a bit difficult to use and not very user-friendly for automating scripts."
"Sometimes when we were migrating from one version to another, some of our scripts started failing."
"This is an expensive solution and perhaps they could change their modeling to improve that."
"HP as a company has been slow to move to support modern technologies e.g. Oracle ADF."
"Complexity. LoadRunner is not simple to learn by installing it and "doing it"."
"Support for Microsoft Dynamics needs improvement."
"The reporting and GUI have room for improvement."
"As we ran the test, we couldn't see the real-time results of how the solution behaved for 200 to 400 virtual users."
"It needs time to mature."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced. It requires attention. Clients have expressed dissatisfaction with the price."
"On a smaller scale, there will be no budget issues, but as we expand to a larger user base, I believe we will face some pricing challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a bit on the high side, but it is still affordable."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five."
"It is competing with other products that may cost significantly less or may be available as open-source. Because of that it is relatively expensive."
"This is not a cheap product."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"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."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"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."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced."
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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
15%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
10%
University
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise67
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I work only with the performance testing tools and not with OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) for mobile and web applications. With performance testing, I am t...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
SmartBear LoadComplete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Falafel Software
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.