- How much does it cost?
It depends on how many virtual users you need for testing, and it depends on if you would like to use our consulting services.Creating an account is free, but a free account is limited to 50 virtual users to try out our product. By default, we offer four pricing plans. Each plan scales up in cost, but offers more benefits such as bundled consulting hours.
For more details, please see Load Testing Cost.
- Does LoadStorm use a full browser for accessing the websites to test or does it emulate a browser?
LoadStorm PRO does not use a browser emulator, nor is it a full browser. Instead, it takes a HAR recording and builds a script from the recorded network requests to mimic a real browser while still allowing for a competitively costed solution. LoadStorm PRO also supports AJAX requests as well as REST and SOAP API calls. If we used an actual browser, we would trade-off the cost effectiveness of our solution for the ability to actually process javascript and other interactions exactly as a browser. Some solutions use actual browsers and cost you a great deal more money.We understand some web developers need real browsers and are willing to pay for it. Our load testing tool is designed to help those developers that are willing to achieve their load testing goals without a full browser and at a much lower cost.
- If I stop a test before reaching the peak users, are the rest of my users wasted?
You can terminate a test early because the target server fails. When this happens in a test using virtual users, those users may seem “wasted”.
Customers have asked us why the system deducted 5,000 VUsers from their account when the test only lasted 10 minutes and stopped at 500 users. The reason LoadStorm does not prorate the VUsers to the minute or to the actual peak users is because we incur the full costs of the 5,000 VUser test.
Amazon’s cloud is elastic, and we “rent” the servers needed for your tests. However, there is a minimum of 1 hour increments that Amazon will bill us. For example, if your test needs 20 servers to hit your defined peak users, we buy those 20 servers upfront before your test actually starts. Then if your load test dies 5 minutes into it, we are still charged as if the test used all 20 servers for 1 hour.
Thus, we recommend that you start with smaller tests to verify that you have all of the environmental factors properly configured. Growing the volume in several tests that increase in volume will potentially eliminate the “wasted” feeling of throwing 5,000 users at a server that fails at 500 users.