Performance testing is conducted to ensure a high-quality product. It should be performed during development before the product is released to the users. That is software performance testing? What performance testing tools are used? Is a website performance test worth it? Why? What do you get from running a web performance test?

What is software performance testing?

First, let’s start with a performance testing definition. They are a category of non-functional testing. This means, that they focus on other aspects of a planned system, rather than its functionality. They do not check if your buttons, forms or subpages work correctly, though they are very important from the usability perspective. Web performance tests control how your app performs under different loads. This has to be done before release, otherwise, it might be too late for any fixes.

Software performance testing simulates user traffic. Depending on the implemented traffic, we speak of different performance test examples, all fitting under our performance testing definition. Let’s explore them.

Different types of performance tests

We distinguish three types of software performance testing depending on the heaviness of the load. Before testing, it is important to define the intended traffic on the app, service or other product. This helps us with running:

• Mobile app performance testing under high or low traffic. This does not include peak traffic.
• Software performance testing under peak loads
• Performance testing which is the true test of the system’s capabilities. The load is increased beyond the maximum value, which is why they are often referred to as stress tests.

Complex software performance testing includes all of the above-mentioned scenarios to test the system’s responsiveness under varying amounts of load. With a proper web performance test, we can prevent the website from crashing under a lot of traffic.

Software performance testing is one of the services offered at Testspring. You can find all the necessary details under Software testing.

When are load, performance and stress tests worth performing?

A detailed website performance test checks your page’s response to varying levels of load. It is sometimes possible for a tester to only perform one kind of test. This is why we will now divide goals and situations, where it may be beneficial to consider performance testing into three separate categories. Let us consider it from the perspective of an online clothing store.

• Performance testing: Our client wishes to introduce a new web-app. He wants to make sure, that all parts program are equally functional and are not dangerous in any way. This is when mobile app performance testing is the best solution. It allows us to define bottlenecks, which in turns reveals what is yet to be improved before release.
• Load testing: Either a new seasonal sale or Black Friday is approaching. This means an increased load for the online store. It may occur, that multiple concurrent users will be browsing the same thing and sending identical requests simultaneously. Performing a load test will reveal if the website or app can function properly under near-peak loads.
• Stress testing: The store sent out a faulty line of products. This resulted in an overload on the website’s contact form. Running a simulation of this situation will check the endurance capabilities and functionality of the system under excess loads and traffic.

Using performance testing tools step-by-step.

How do our experiences testers conduct performance tests? What performance testing tools do they use? This is the step-by-step process:

1. First we define the scope of testing. We need to decide what lies within and what is outside it. This allows us to reduce the number of false negatives and optimize the costs of running performance tests.

2. Risk analysis. We define what might pose a risk to the software and pick priorities.

3. We plan the performance testing. For this purpose, we use a special test sheet, which can then be used as a test report.

More on this document can be found here: No requirements documentation doesn’t have to be a QA horror story .

4. Testing. We perform actions, which allow us to define any bugs and errors. We do this by using app or website performance testing tools.

5. We finish testing. At this point, we have to collect the most important data collected after using the performance testing tools.

6. Analysing results. We proof whether all testing goals were achieved.

7. Collecting data and compiling a report. We highlight the results and propose improvements.

8. We come back to the test data and analyse it one more time to make sure we found all the bugs.

9. We create improvements and propose changes to our client.