We mostly use Silk Performer to test the web protocol. I'm the principal software architect and we are users of this product.
Scripting and basic test executions are good features; configuring the workload for tests is easy
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
We haven't used Silk on any project where it hasn't been able to support whatever we have needed. There are other tools that can do certain things better, but if you're looking for a market all-rounder, I still prefer to use Silk. The scripting and basic test executions, as well as creating workloads for particular tests, are quite good features in Silk and we use them often. The Silk Performance analyzer provides a good monitoring tool, despite being a little dated. It's simple to script different scenarios, and it's easy to configure the workload for your tests. I think it's better than quite a few other tools that we have seen.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is generally stable. There are some areas where we've seen some memory leaks, especially when it comes to uploading files. There are workarounds available.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are no scalability issues.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is fine, although there's always room for improvement.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple but it takes quite a bit of time. We have 15 users in the company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think the cost is on the higher side when compared to some of the newer tools. You can't really compare this with other tools because some of the newer ones are not as feature-rich and as easy to use for our needs. For simple API testing and testing microservices with many users, there are a lot of tools available for those kinds of scenarios, but for testing actual enterprise products, I don't think they are that helpful. I think Silk is better, and maybe that's why the license cost is a little high.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
