OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) Reviews

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.

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.

I primarily use LoadRunner Professional to load test applications in a manufacturing environment. 

LoadRunner Professional allowed us to load test potential new payroll solutions that would be implemented throughout the entire organization so that we knew which was best suited to performing well under pressure. 

LoadRunner Professional's most valuable features are the easy setup, the auto-correlation feature, the high number of protocols, the analysis, and the reporting.

Micro Focus has two separate products for web and mobile applications, which means you have to invest in both. LoadRunner Professional does have a mobile protocol, but it works on very few applications. Merging the two products would be a big improvement, especially if Micro Focus also ensures the on-prem and cloud solutions have the same features. They're also not great with communication, including about important things like new rollouts. 

I've been using LoadRunner Professional for five to six years.

LoadRunner Professional's performance has been good, and we've had no issues with stability.

LoadRunner Professional's technical support is really good - they respond promptly and give super support. They also have a nice, robust knowledge bank, so if there are any issues, you can usually find help on the support site or via the community.

The ease of LoadRunner Professional's setup process is one of its strengths - it's straightforward and takes a day or two to deploy.

We used a vendor team.

We've got quite a good ROI from LoadRunner Professional, as it has reduced our downtime, raised our response time, and allowed us to test the new payroll system for the entire organization. However, the ROI is lower than it could be as we only use LoadRunner sparingly to avoid higher costs.

LoadRunner Professional's licensing costs are on the higher side, apart from the Community Edition. The Community Edition is free but limited to fifty users; after that, you have to pay for extra users.

I would recommend LoadRunner Professional as a helpful, user-friendly tool with a huge knowledge base. The only thing to bear in mind is the higher cost. I would give LoadRunner Professional a rating of eight out of ten.

Multiple protocols are available in LoadRunner, so we can choose one based on our requirements. If it is a single protocol, we have to start recording the scripting and checking whether you can record through LoadRunner. Once the recording is done, we have to do scripting and execution. We have three people working on various applications for the same client. We are working simultaneously and sharing our work to finish our content.

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. 

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.

I have been using LoadRunner for my entire career, so it's been almost four years. 

LoadRunner is standalone. It doesn't rely on anything. There are three components. We are using a controller and analysis instead of a controller. We design a script and run it in the controller. In analysis, we do the reporting and analysis, but instead of a controller, we have the option called performance center, where we can run the script like the controller. However, the controller is a standard Windows-based application. If you choose the performance center, any number of people can access it at the same time.

I have used JMeter and NeoLoad. I switched to LoadRunner because the client preferred it. If they have a budget and need to see clear views, we will opt for LoadRunner. However, if they lack funds, they can use an open-source tool like JMeter. I also have more experience with LoadRunner, so I would prefer to use that. We can write any number of lines of code manually to make the script work.

LoadRunner is a little more expensive than NeoLoad, but LoadRunner's interface is more user-friendly. 

Whenever a client wants to improve their application, they will procure the licenses. It's simple to install. it will take hardly 20 to 30 minutes of time to install and we will get 50 user licenses free of cost.

It only takes 30 minutes to deploy on our application. It's on a private cloud that we use whenever we're working on a particular project. One person is enough to install it.

LoadRunner is a little more expensive than other solutions, but there are no hidden costs. 

I rate LoadRunner nine out of 10. You can get 50 users for free before you decide to procure the license, but run the script for multiple users.

Our primary use case was for performance testing and platform application problems. We used it mainly in the banking sector and for API testing. It's multi-purpose. I recently moved to a different company.

This is a very comprehensive tool. It helped us with performance testing and allowed us to capture the actual performance engineering as well. 

If they were to add some kind of specific level monitoring, I think that would be very useful. When it comes to the main load of operation, it stimulates the load by using the underlying mechanism, either the API or some other protocol. If they were able to capture the UI aspect as well, that would be very, very helpful. This is an expensive solution and perhaps they could change their modeling to improve that.

I used this solution for over 12 years. 

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is scalable. The whole objective of LoadRunner is scalability. In the organization, we had somewhere around 20 users supporting multiple customers. 

The technical support is very good. 

Positive

I also have experience with JMeter. In comparison, if it's a wave application or to some degree API testing, then JMeter works well and it's a free tool so we can tweak it to our needs. We can use BlazeMeter for the same purpose. They are cheaper options than LoadRunner. But when it comes to different types of protocols, unique protocols, those are typically supported by LoadRunner. It's a very comprehensive tool and that's why it's costly.

The initial setup is not that straightforward. It requires specialists to train LoadRunner users. We used integrators to assist with implementation. The solution doesn't really require any maintenance. 

Micro Focus offers several options for licensing, it really depends on the number of users you have and your use case. 

It's important to have proper parameterization and correlation as part of the scripting. The workflow or modeling has to be done appropriately according to the load that will be required and that needs to be done prior to implementation. Know what your steps will be, how you plan to increase the load and replicate real-world scenarios.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

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.

We use the solution to help customers test web applications. 

I am impressed with the tool's correlation function. 

I would like the solution to include monitoring capacity. 

I have been working with the product for more than 10 years. 

I would rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten.

I would rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten. We have around 1000 virtual users for the product. 

I would rate the product's setup a nine out of ten. It's easy and straightforward. The tool's deployment took one hour to complete. 

I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten.