OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) Reviews

Grouping scripts based on IDs in LoadRunner Professional saved me a significant amount of time. Being able to record and manage scripts according to specific IDs streamlined the testing process. Using LoadRunner Professional's script grouping feature, I saved approximately 30 minutes on testing scheduling.

LoadRunner Professional's features, especially the script grouping, significantly contributed to improving product quality. The tool enabled efficient identification of issues during testing, fostering better collaboration within the team and facilitating quicker problem resolution.

LoadRunner Professional excels in simulating virtual users and assessing application performance. My favorite feature in LoadRunner Professional is its ability to group scripts under separate IDs. This allows for more organized and flexible testing scenarios. I appreciate the option to add and manage multiple scripts within these groups, providing a convenient way to handle diverse testing scenarios based on specific requirements.

In terms of improvement, it lacks mobile testing features present in some competitors, like GitMatters, which I find valuable. Adding this capability would enhance the tool's versatility, making it more convenient for testing mobile applications directly.

I have been working with LoadRunner Professional for a year.

We have not had any stability issues with the product so far.

The technical support for LoadRunner is generally responsive and helpful. I would rate them as a seven out of ten. While they address issues promptly, there is room for improvement when it involves collaboration with other technical support teams, which can sometimes extend resolution times.

Neutral

I have previously used JMeter.

Downloading LoadRunner Professional was straightforward via the portal, and the installation process was relatively easy, especially with a quick and standard setup. Overall, the initial deployment was user-friendly. It takes about 15 minutes to install it. LoadRunner Professional doesn't require much initial configuration. However, to test applications, it is necessary to open the firewall to accept traffic.

The pricing model, especially when involving partners, could use some improvement.

LoadRunner Professional greatly reduced my workload, I would say around an eight out of ten in an IT context. Its efficiency and helpful features made a substantial impact on the overall workload, streamlining processes and enhancing productivity.

Since using LoadRunner, my application or site has performed well under heavy loads, addressing errors originating from the server. The testing with LoadRunner helped identify and resolve issues, providing confidence in the application's performance even during peak loads.

I haven't had significant security issues since using LoadRunner for the past year. While I haven't explored its security features extensively, I haven't encountered any major problems. Contacting support has been helpful when needed.

Overall, I would rate LoadRunner Professional as an eight out of ten. It is user-friendly, the technical support is helpful, and the installation is straightforward.

In the banking industry, we utilize OpenText LoadRunner Professional to evaluate how systems handle increased workloads.

I implemented OpenText LoadRunner Professional because I encountered challenges when working with Oracle protocols in the banking industry, specifically regarding ticket resolution during correlation tasks.

What distinguishes OpenText LoadRunner Professional from other solutions is its controller log, which we use to simulate the number of users, and its user-friendly UI settings, which allows us to mimic user activity during performance testing.

LoadRunner has helped us save time. With a proper understanding of how the interface works, we can complete tasks quickly.

Employing LoadRunner has significantly enhanced our product quality, which is of paramount importance to us. With LoadRunner, we can precisely identify performance bottlenecks within our application and implement effective solutions to optimize its performance.

When it comes to simulation and report management, LoadRunner helps reduce our workload.

The front loader and the reporting features are the most valuable aspects of OpenText LoadRunner Professional.

The reporting and GUI have room for improvement.

I want LoadRunner Professional to have the capability to track various statistics from network databases and application servers. Currently, we rely on gathering this information from the respective teams. If LoadRunner Professional could provide this information, it would become our preferred tool.

I have been using OpenText LoadRunner Professional for 12 years.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional is a stable solution.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. While the solution is scalable, there is an associated cost.

While OpenText provides excellent customer support for partners, the lack of a phone support option limits the ways we can interact with them. The only methods of communication are through their portal or via email. If phone support were available, the overall support experience would be flawless. Sometimes, the issues we encounter are complex and challenging to resolve through text alone. Having access to 24/7 phone support would be immensely beneficial, allowing us to connect directly with representatives to discuss these matters effectively.

Positive

I have experience using Apache JMeter, LoadRunner Community Edition, and LoadRunner Cloud Edition. As a support specialist, I continue to utilize these solutions indirectly based on the project requirements, as I am not the decision-maker regarding the specific tool selection.

The initial deployment is straightforward, requiring only basic knowledge of the application and operating system. A detailed manual is available on the OpenText website for reference.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The price is a bit on the high side, but it is still affordable.

I would rate OpenText LoadRunner Professional nine out of ten.

I would only recommend LoadRunner Professional's TruClient feature for browser-based testing if it is for a single application as it is easier for scripting.

We primarily use the solution for enterprise performance modeling and validation of enterprise networks as well as tax applications.

The scripting or programming that you do to run within either the on-premises or cloud environments are the same. They take the same types of programs that allow you to run the performance modeling operations you need to run. 

There are various languages that they allow those programs to be written in, whether you want to use Java or something else.

On-premies, the step up for professional (in terms of models) is the enterprise version. However, in the cloud version, you almost have the enterprise right away. On-premises should be the same. However, since the cloud version has grown more in importance, they've expanded it without necessarily expanding the on-premises version. That is why we end up using both deployments.

They need to do some work within the very development environment. They need to have a better way of replaying what data is captured so it looks more like what the actual application is doing. By that, I mean that web technologies have increased pretty rapidly over the last two or three years. They have something called a runtime viewer that you do use when you're debugging your scripts. And in addition to all the other logging that they have, which is very expensive.

There's a reporting part of the cloud that could be improved a little bit. I've been more used to using the analysis program that's on the on-premise software, whether it's LoadRunner Enterprise or LoadRunner Professional. They have three major components of the whole software package is the analysis engine that looks at the data collected by the load test, and that generates a variety of different reports. They do that on the cloud as well. However, I don't know if it's as detailed; however, we maybe do not have much control as to what you want to get.

I've used the solution for over ten years. 

Technical support isn't the best. It depends on who you get. Every company has different levels of technical support. They have level one, level two, level three, and then the AR and D after that. If you're dealing with a simple question, maybe the level one or level two folks can handle it. However, if you have something that's really technical, you need to get to level three, and sometimes it takes a little more of a push to get that type of case elevated to the right person.

They have customer success managers or customer engagement managers that help customers do that - if you are paying for that level of support. It is the staff that can help move things along where improvement is needed. 

This is not an open-source product. You do have to pay for the solution. However, there are open-source solutions available. 

The cloud is probably competitive in terms of pricing. However, if you're talking about the on-premise stuff, the professional licenses or the enterprise licenses are on the high side of prices. They're not they're not cheap.

The biggest thing about the cloud, and, for that matter, whatever application you're talking about, is that they take care of the headache of you maintaining the infrastructure needed to support your performance testing environment.

I've been with LoadRunner long enough to know what it's like to maintain one of those types of environments since the cloud wasn't around ten years ago. Therefore, I've witnessed that the cloud offers significant savings in time and effort from a customer's point of view, even if you pay for it.

That said, they don't give it away for free. You have everyone that's doing all the maintenance for you, including setting up your servers and making sure they use to start up the servers appropriately with the right level of software and keep the software up to date and all that stuff. That costs, and that's not free. There's a careful balancing act you have to have between how much you're going to use the cloud, and what you're gonna do on-premise.

We're customers and end-users.

We have both the professional version as well as the cloud version.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

In terms of the cloud version, it definitely takes care of the issue of maintaining all the servers for you, ramping them up consistently. There are very few outages as far as that goes.

Based on the requirements, we use Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. Our clients have their licenses and access. So, we execute in the client environment itself, which involves, basically, running a load test or stress test using the tool and analyzing the system performance with different metrics like server session and clientset.

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional improved our organization's functioning. However, the cost is very high, and the support system is very low. If you ask for one ticket, like, you create a case, and they'll come back in one week of time. Then, they keep asking for most of the access to the environment, which is, like, the client's environment, and we can't provide access to the support. So there are a lot of challenges with those things. Upgrading to the new versions has a lot of challenges. The tool, access, and features they are building meet industry standards and are very helpful.

When you speak about its integration capabilities, especially when we talk about the latest version and not the older version that we had integrated with Dynatrace. So, we are integrating the current version with a tensor database and Grafana dashboards. So we can directly communicate it. The current version also integrates with DataDot, where whatever execution is there, we can collate results in DataDot itself and analyze the server-side metrics with that time duration so that everything is in one single place.

The kind of protocols that the current version supports is good since it's improved when compared to Version 12.55. I am very much happy with the tool and its process. The cost and the support lakhs a lot.

The support and price are the downsides of the solution. Micro Focus should decrease the cost. So, I'll explain one scenario. So, I work for multiple different clients to whom I provide support on the subject matter. Regarding the cost, if you consider 20,000 virtual user hours, if a user uses it for ten minutes, one virtual user is down. And if a user uses, like, 100 users for ten minutes, 100 virtual user hours are gone. So, instead of 100 multiplied by ten, it should be the number of minutes that get converted into hours, and that is the number of virtual hours that should be gone. In pay-per-use, the cost is more, and the unlimited license, like, an unlimited number of executions, costs even more. And mobile solutions, like earlier, could be integrated with the mobile center. Now mobile centers are very costly. So, doing it per device and testing has become challenging. I need to depend on other tools where I need to convert those scripts to LoadRunner and then run the test on this tool. So I need to pay two different software techs for licenses to solve mobile performance testing. In short, if that is done within that system, it could be helpful for us.

The licensing system is not very convenient for me. I would like to increase the number of working hours per license. Also, performance testing on mobile devices could be better.

Performance testing on mobile devices requires external software. You have many tools, and you have other tools which support on-device performance testing. So that tools can be integrated with LoadRunner. But, then the cost becomes high. So, if LoadRunner has some specific specialty, like, any on-device testing would be of a single user. If I connect my USB to a laptop and execute the test on a device, and test the application using the number of, like, one user running it for a certain duration of time, then it would be helpful for me to calculate the response time as well as the well device-level metrics like CPU memory or battery consumption. Right now, LoadRunner is lacking in the aforementioned areas.

Testing your kind of WebRTC protocols, like if you have a streaming application, and I want to join 5,000 concurrent user sessions. So, it is a one-session ID for 5,000 users joining that video session, and there is a tutor who is, like, teaching the lessons to the students. So this is a scenario. It's a kind of video conversation. I just want to analyze the number of users, the user behavior, video quality, audio quality, and how many users get dropped from the call. I think the latest version for 2023 doesn't support a few particular things causing lagging issues. It has an MQTT protocol, and executing a test on the Kafka messaging queue, I don't think we need to write a custom Java code and then we need to build those Java JAR files or load agents, and then, normally, we can run it. So there is a dependency. So there are a lot of Java JAR files we need to substitute and run. So instead of that, if LoadRunner itself has that entire tool set installed in their location, and if you can just plug and play the request, it would be good. If you go to Apache JMeter, it's simple, so if you go for ActiveMQ, I give the configuration details and then give a custom message. It is a simple step where I can execute and push thousands to ten thousands of messages to the queue. But in LoadRunner, it is a complex thing.

It's been three years since we tried to migrate from Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional Version 12.55 to LoadRunner Enterprise 2023, but there is no active support from the team. We did not deploy because of a lack of support. We need a license bundle if all things are to be migrated. We have one TB of data that needs to be migrated to the new system.

For maintenance, I think one person is required, and sometimes to update, like, if you do hundreds of activations and browse the tools, which overall has a slowness in general. So maintaining and creating tables and all those stuff requires

support, and I think one resource is required. The person should preferably be an administrator, and he should be aware of the database, repository file system, networking, and all such stuff.

I have been using Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional for ten years. I am an end-user of the solution. I am using Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional Version 12.55, and sometimes for some projects, we use Micro Focus LoadRunner Enterprise 2022.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Scalability is good. I can generate the number of user loads while adding a number of cloud instances and execute them anytime. I didn't see any issues with the tool while trying to scale at a large level.

Around 10 to 15 performance engineers are using the solution in my company. Also, the solution is used daily, and I mostly use it in the client environment.

So, it's currently used at its maximum rate.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high-quality technical support, I rate the support a one.

Negative

Previously, we were using HP. Though the tool's functionalities remain the same, its ownership keeps getting changed. We go with multiple open-source solutions like JMeter and all.

I rate the initial setup a seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. Considering my impressions of the product, I understand that it is a commercial tool, and it is very stable and of good quality. In general, it is very good. But, there are multiple factors where we can reject it because of its cost, support, and considering that anything that is very new can be done in the open-source tool. So rather than this particular thing, we need Micro Focus to put in extra effort. So, green screen applications are not supported by the solution. Also, ActiveMQ won't be supported in the solution. So for that, I need to write a custom code. I need to build different Java JAR files. Then, it doesn't support Java 64-bit, which is very poor. It supports only Java 32-bit version. For ActiveMQ and Kafka messaging queues, Java 64-bit is more dependable. So, that is completely redundant.

In the organization part, we have it deployed on-prem. But most of the tool licensing that we use is on the client side itself since the client purchases the tool, and so in their environment, we do the test.

On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five. So, many things can be done with open-source solutions rather than Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. But LoadRunner provides scalability and stability, which helps save the money of our customers.

If you have enough money, then you can go ahead with the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for load testing. 

The executive management is more confident when they go for production. They know that the performance issues are already addressed. 

The tool's most valuable features are scripting and automation. 

The tool should consider releasing a SaaS version since it makes more sense nowadays. 

I have been using the product for three to four years. 

The solution is stable. 

OpenText LoadRunner Enterprise's pricing is reasonable. 

OpenText LoadRunner Enterprise has helped us save time by five to ten percent. The tool has helped us improve product quality. 

We use the TruClient feature, and it has helped us reduce scripting. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

The solution is a performance-assessing tool. It supports a myriad of protocols. That is a big advantage of LoadRunner.

LoadRunner has helped in projects where we needed to use different protocols. It's also for clients who had already bought LoadRunner before and wanted to make use of it. 

It works on Citrix and desktop applications. There are a lot of protocols that LoadRunner will be able to handle. It is a great tool in that sense since it has a wide range of options.

The autocorrelation feature is quite helpful. With it, we can dynamically handle new sessions or non-new variables. 

It is a good and stable tool. 

The licensing is not cheap. However, it the client has specific requirements LoadRunner, will likely meet their application expectations very well.

The organizational aspects could be better.  

There should be more integration with more open-source platforms. It would be great if it could integrate with GitLab, for example. 

More features could be added to make it more robust. 

I've used the solution for around four years. I've used the solution on various projects.

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It gets good support from Micro Focus teams. I'd rate the stability 8.5 to nine out of ten in terms of reliability. 

It's a highly scalable tool. There are processes that can be added and can scale vertically and horizontally. 

It's a fairly straightforward setup. I'd rate it seven out of ten. It's a plug-and-play tool. There is a bit of a learner curve, however. You could also do some workarounds if you need to, however, that might make it more complex to set up. 

ROI is on a case-by-case basis. Likely there would be an ROI if an organization is heavily into LoadRunner. For example, if they had 100,000 or 200,000 users accessing the application at once where peak performance would be important.  

There's an Enterprise Professional and Cloud option as well. The cloud option is maybe called StormRunner. However, most clients choose on-premises deployments. I use the professional version.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten as it is more expensive. 

There is a free trial for up to 50 users that companies should try.

I'm a consultant. 

I've used LoadRunner XP versions and the latest LoadRunner, the 2021 R1 version.

I would advise new users to start with the professional versions. Then, if you have a requirement for an Enterprise version, you can go ahead and go to the Enterprise version. There is a free trial for 50 users. It's a good idea to take advantage of that. That way, you can try it out and see if LoadRunner's the better tool for you, for your organization, and you can look at pricing to see if it is a good match. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

My customers use it for performance testing. It is the ultimate tool for it.

It has features for recording. The best feature with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is that there is very little bottleneck or overhead issues. With LoadRunner, you can spawn 2000 contributions for one machine.

The pricing model, selling model, and business model need to be adjusted. For non-enterprise organizations, Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is too expensive and not worth the cost.

Technical support also needs to be improved.

Everyone wants to make the testing phase easy, and so, the recording feature needs to be more stable for every app and every command application. Right now, the call language is C, and it would be better if it were changed to another language such as JavaScript.

I've been using this solution for almost 20 years.

It's stable, but in the newest version, it takes about six months till we can guarantee the stability.

My customers have turned to Micro Focus' technical support, but they have mostly not been able to solve the problems. When the case has to do with the setup, the technical support has been useless. So, I would give them a three out of ten.

Negative

I have used several tools, but Micro Focus is the best. We can get things done in a very short period of time. If we used an open source tool, then we would need more time.

The initial deployment is quite simple. It's not complex and can be done in one or two days.

LoadRunner Professional is easy to maintain.

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.

I recommend LoadRunner to everyone because they have a community with 50 concurrent users. Micro Focus has done standard testing and guarantees the use of LoadRunner in this case. With an open source tool, however, there is no guarantee, and you would be using it at your own risk.

The purpose of using a tool like this is to reduce application performance risk. So, using a tool at your own risk to reduce the risk is not reasonable. Therefore, I recommend using LoadRunner and rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We use OpenText LoadRunner Professional in demand every time there is a requirement for notice, and that's when we use it.

The ability to have a load testing tool and conduct your load testing maybe before some major implementations leads to some cost saving in the long run because it avoids a lot of related issues.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional covers a number of protocols. It uses high-level languages like Java, CVC, and CCL. The main feature that is quite impressive is its ability to install however you want and just use that or whenever you want the availability of load generators.

The pricing could be lower. Moreover, there could be improvements in the auto-generated support reports, such as making it easier to work on the Word format reports if you want to add your customizations.

I have been working with OpenText LoadRunner Professional for more than ten years.

The stability of OpenText LoadRunner Professional is excellent. I would rate it a nine out of ten as it is a rock-solid solution with no issues.

OpenText LoadRunner Professional is very scalable. I would rate its scalability an eight out of ten because it allows for flexible installation and use of load generators.

OpenText technical support is very helpful, depending on the structure of how you get your support, whether directly from OpenText or via other suppliers. So far, the support has been good, and we have built some nice relationships with the support team. I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

Before OpenText LoadRunner Professional, I did some comparisons between LoadRunner, JMeter, and Free Performer. In terms of ease of use, support, and overall functionality, LoadRunner became the better solution.

The initial setup of OpenText LoadRunner Professional was quite easy and not difficult at all. It took us at most one hour to deploy it.

I am the one who does the installation and any troubleshooting or maintenance related to OpenText LoadRunner Professional. When I have issues, I log a call with the OpenText support team.

The long-term use of LoadRunner Professional has led to some cost savings by avoiding a lot of load-related issues.

After purchasing OpenText LoadRunner, you only pay for the specific protocols you want to use. There are extra expenses depending on the licenses or specific protocols you need.

We evaluated LoadRunner, JMeter, and Free Performer before choosing OpenText LoadRunner Professional.

I would recommend OpenText LoadRunner Professional for performance testing needs because it is easy to implement, covers a wide range of protocols, and integrates well with other tools. The pricing, however, could be improved.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.