IBM Rational Performance Tester Reviews

Real time view and its inbuilt root cause analysis tools is something which I like the most. This feature is something unique to RPT when compared to other market leading tools like load runner.

Like any other performance testing tool, this helped us to identify performance bottlenecks in the application prior to the go live. It also helped us to identify and pinpoint the issues in the applications code by using its inbuilt root cause analysis tools.

User friendliness can be better, as this is one area where it lacks. More over the connectivity options with other IBM in-house products like Rational Clear Quest, IBM Tivoli and Rational Team Concert can be improved.

We've used it for two years.

Yes, the tool seems to be unstable/unresponsive sometimes. The resource utilization by the tool itself is on the higher side when compared to other tools in the market.

Customer support is above average to excellent.

I have used a variety of the tools that are available.

It was straightforward.

It was done in-house, and I would advise you to have more JVM memory allocated for this product than the default amount.

The pricing is similar to Load Runner but the package for virtual user licencing is different. I would recommend this tool for small businesses with only web applications for performance testing.

This tool was the only option with the customer withwhom I worked with.

• Less coding needed
• Easy to understand
• Easy integrating it with existing systems
• I can test more than one performance test type (load testing, stress testing, scalability testing, etc)

Overall, all the features have been improved, especially if you need powerful performance testing tools. But, it would be better if this tool supported database connections directly, instead of importing from .csv file

I've used it for seven months.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10.

8/10.

Previously, I used JMeter, because if we are talking about the open version JMeter is nearly perfect in usability and reliability side. But, since the organization changed, I needed the more powerful tools.

It was straightforward.

As a consultant, my client implement this tools.

Now, the price slightly expensive especially if you are in small-medium company, but if you are in a medium-high company, and need the powerful tools with IBM great name, just use it. It would be better if IBM release the 'cheapest' version for the small-medium company.

• Test Creation
• Execution

Helped in improving response times in a few of our transactions.

They need to have support for more protocols & frameworks, as well as making it more user friendly.

We've been using it for six months.

It's fair.

It's fair.

It was complex.

It was implemented in-house.

We chose this product because it was a better price than Loadrunner.

This product is basically for performance testing of web applications and mobile applications. It is used for all sorts of performance and load testing. We are currently using its latest version.

It can support both web applications and mobile applications, and in certain cases, it can also support testing of desktop applications or software-based applications. You can write web applications, mobile applications, and software-based applications.

There are some features that Micro Focus LoadRunner provides, but they are not available in IBM Rational Performance Tester. They should include such features.

It can also have more reports similar to what HP provides. It might also need some improvement in terms of the tools and support for other technology areas. Certain technologies are not supported by every tool. They need to support all sorts of technologies and platforms on which web applications and mobile applications are built. They need complete support for all sorts of technologies.

I have been using IBM Rational Performance Tester since its inception. It has been 10 to 15 years.

It is a very stable product. It competes with Micro Focus LoadRunner.

It is a very scalable product. It can support the load of thousands of users, and it works very smoothly. I have more than ten customers who use this solution. We plan to keep using this solution. This product is being continued by IBM, and it is a very good product.

Their technical support is wonderful. They provide wonderful support. As a part of the first sale, IBM gives support for this tool to people who buy or evaluate the product. After that, you have to renew support every year.

It was straightforward. It takes hardly a day to install and configure everything.

I installed it myself. We use it ourselves, and it is also used by our customers.

For the basic features, you don't need a technical person, but for advanced testing or customized application testing, when you have to write the code, you need a technical person. Other than that, it is very user-friendly, and any person who knows about testing can use it.

It is much cheaper than Micro Focus LoadRunner. We need perpetual licenses. 

Support is included in the first sale. After that, you need to renew support every year.

We had the option of Micro Focus LoadRunner, but it was very costly.

I strongly recommend this solution to others. They can use IBM Rational Performance Tester without any problems for their web applications, mobile application, or software-based applications.

I would rate IBM Rational Performance Tester an eight out of ten.

The way how tests are presented in the tool, and the possibilities to edit tests and follow depending data using Data Correlation feature.

The Load Schedule has very nice preview, and the new Load Generator as the agent makes planing of testing environment capacity much simpler.

With each new version, the tool gets better and better features.

The handling of data correlations in the tool has helped us, and sped up our preparation of complex tests with a lot of security features, certificates, generally in enterprise environment. The tool supports Z/OS applications which is very important to our customers, as well.

I've been using it for over 10 years.

Sometimes new versions have bugs.

With each version, it becomes more and more stable.

IBM has very good support in this area, and an accessible knowledge base, so over 90% of issues can be resolved using the web. If you need it, IBM support for the tool is very fast and useful.

It depends on the scope, complexity and expected load. After introducing Load Generator Agent, as I already mentioned, setting up environment and capacity planning became simpler.

We implemented in-house and for our customers, in our lab for performance testing on demand, and we offer consulting services for the tool throughout the world.

IBM separately licenses tool and concurrent users (threads), but for this tool, IBM offers the renting of licenses over SaaS programs. Customers can rent licenses for a fixed time (minimum is one month) and use licenses during a projects duration. Licenses over SaaS are much cheaper and the customer gets IBM support.

We evaluate HP Load Runner and use JMeter. Generating of complex performance test with lot of data correlation was much faster and simpler using Rational Performance Tester. In the case of generating robotic performance testing, we still sometimes use JMeter. For LoadRunner, I would say it is a much more strategic decision when to use the tool.

The Resource Monitoring feature has more flexible options for different OS's such as Windows, Unix and Linux.

It provides the option to collect real-time data using ITM monitoring agents.

Reporting needs improvement to provide more customization options in the performance test analyst to build custom reports. Recent versions like 8.6, and 8.7 has better scalability on user load testing.

When compared to competitors, the reporting module in this version was missing user friendly customization on building report variants such asTransaction Percentile Summary etc. Also, I think time cannot be excluded in the report, and no options to create customized report templates exist for reusability. These are two improvement areas which I can think of and I am not sure if they are rectified in the recent release, since I haven’t got much opportunity to use the latest version recently.

I've used it for over one year.

8/10

8/10

The initial setup was not difficult and proper instruction guides are provided with sufficient step by step instructions.

It's one of the most cost-effective products on the market.

• Root cause analysis 
• Provides the response time breakdown at the method level
• Real time monitoring of CPU
• Memory
• Disk utilization

It has improved our visibility of reporting and simplifying performance testing for larger projects/programs. Also, it is being used for functional validation as well as for performance regression testing for on going builds/releases.

Installation and configuration processes, and support from IBM all need to be improved.

I've used it for six months.

Implementation is simple, but exploring the capability of this tools hasn't being marketed as well as LoadRunner/Performance Center 12 has been. More education needs to be provided to users.

The tool supports multiple protocols, such as HTTP, Citrix, and SAP. It enables me, as a consultant, to run performance tests against the most common application environments.

I can manage the complete performance test process from a single interface, which saves me from installing additional software and swapping between applications.

Provides very good user workload modelling functionality, which is important for me to accurately represent real business scenarios when designing my tests.

Very easy to customize and edit tests once recorded with lots of features for renaming, merging, splitting pages, and data driving tests.

Load generation is supported from the cloud via a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model, which removes the need for us to provide additional hardware resources and network bandwidth for large tests.

Resource monitoring of the system under test infrastructure is also supported. This enables me to correlate performance statistics with resource utilization figures during analysis.

It supports our agile approach not only philosophically but now practically in enabling us to provide performance testing “On Demand” and earlier in the development lifecycle.

This allowed us to act quickly on several occasions where it was crucial to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks with minimal delay.

The installation and tool setup can take some time, since this involves several components. A review of the licensing implementation would help here.

There could be better process guidance to help inexperienced testers to follow procedures and navigate the tool.

We have been using this for 10 years.

There were no issues with stability, although as this is a Java-based tool. You do have to manage the “housekeeping” in terms of garbage collection and heap size optimization when running large load tests or executing tests for an extended period of time.

This tool is very scalable. This is one of its selling points. For large scale tests, i.e., 5000 virtual users and up, it performs very well.

When needed, I have found the technical support to be very in terms of speed of response and problem resolution ability.

JMeter was used previously, but we found it limited in terms of protocol support, scalability, and lack of support for the entire test process i.e., analysis and reporting.

The installation and tool setup can take some time since this involves several components. A review of the licensing implementation would help here.

This is not the most expensive tool in the market place, but of course, it is not open source.

The cloud load generation option could be a solution for companies not able or willing to invest in an enterprise performance test solution.

I would consider their token licensing option if you are looking into other testing and or development tools since you can optimize license usage by re-using licensees across the Rational tool set.

• Apache JMeter
• RadView WebLOAD
• Neotys NeoLoad

Realize that this tool will require some time and expertise to setup and configure. Make sure that you plan for this.