Ever since we got exposure to the web and the Internet, things have never been the same. Be it business operations or the way we approach any services, even if it is purchasing groceries or booking a flight. Thanks to the introduction of advanced software technology and mobile applications that have brought everything to our fingertips.

Nevertheless, the growing need for digital solutions has made the developers and IT solutions providers skip the quality assurance factor and aim directly at the competition. However, the need for sustainability and better business outcomes requires offering the most efficient and most stable solutions to the end-users.

Here comes the role of quality assurance solutions. The efforts made on checking the functionality and performance of the product under test could help create the most reliable solutions. It only needs developers and testers to make the right choices with their manual and automation testing efforts.

But since making the perfect choice with a performance testing tool is quite difficult, it is necessary that factors like application type, purpose, target users, technical expertise, and use of incorporated technologies such as cloud, big data, etc. must be taken into consideration.

Besides, there are several SaaS-based and On-prem solutions that can help you with performance testing solutions for your application producing expected users and environment. Or you can simply begin it with one of the most reliable tools available in the market, i.e. Apache JMeter. Though there are many other open-source solutions, Apache JMeter is a go-to-tool for performance testing.

But what makes is the primary choice of the QA testers?

In this blog, we will aim at understanding JMeter as a performance testing tool while exploring the benefits it can offer on testing different types of applications. Let’s begin.  

‍JMeter: Definition & areasoOf application

JMeter is an open-source testing tool from Apache that offers a wide range of performance testing capabilities. It is actually a java-based desktop application that allows testing of client-server applications like databases, FTP servers, websites, web services, etc. More importantly, it does not require you to pay any licensing costs.

Even if it does not need you to spend any money, JMeter never disappoints its users by aiding the testing goals. Some of the common types of applications that can be tested using JMeter include:

• Database Servers
• FTP Servers
• LDAP Servers
• Mail Servers – SMTP, POP3, IMAP  
• Shell Scripts
• TCP Servers  
• Websites – HTTP and HTTPS
• Web Services – REST and SOAP

Benefits of using JMeter for performance testing

As we have said earlier, JMeter is an entirely Java-based desktop application made to meet the performance testing goals of the users. From evaluating the system under varying loads to analyzing the system for factors like functionality, load, performance, regression, and more.  

Not just that, JMeter being a free and open-source tool can be easily integrated with different plugins due to its platform-independent nature and java-based DNA. On that note, let us quickly jump to understanding the benefits JMeter can offer:

Server compatibility

JMeter is a highly capable tool that can handle load and performance testing for different products, irrespective of the server or protocol. Be it HTTP or HTTPS web services, database, FTP, LDAP, MOM (Message-oriented Middleware) through NoSQL (MongoDB) and JMS.  

Expandable architecture

Since JMeter belongs to an open-source community, people using JMeter are quite active when it comes to developing plugins around JMeter. In fact, JMeter offers all the capabilities that are required to work on reporting goals, especially server resource monitoring and other features. All in all, if you need to write your own Plugins, it is quite convenient to pursue with JMeter.

No investment required

Another significant benefit that makes JMeter a potential tool to use is no cost involved. Therefore, any team with a limited budget could take advantage of JMeter for developing in-house tools or working on any commercial project that needs performance management.  

Record & playback

With the convenience of drag and drop, JMeter allows users to enjoy the record and playback feature allowing users to create test scripts more quickly while cutting off any latencies.

Customizations

If you are a developer who needs to harness some additional capabilities on JMeter, you can always take advantage of its open-source nature to customize its source code and create anything that suits your requirements.  

Distributed load testing

JMeter brings distributed load testing allowing developers and testers to work on a master-slave set enabling load testing on different machines.

Community support

Since JMeter comes as an open-source asset, you can always reach out to the community to help you with your test initiatives. Besides, there is a large number of tutorials available online that can be used to understand its implementation. It even offers so many plugins for free that can be used to speed up the process of script creation and analysis.  

Necessary considerations before using JMeter

Even though JMeter is one of the most popular performance testing tools, there are certain things that developers and testers need to understand while working with it. Since it is a tool that comes with no vendor support on app development, it is crucial that users must understand that working on JMeter needs you to have access to available JMeter resources for smoother execution.  

Apart from this, there are certain other important factors that must be kept in mind when testers need to meet their performance testing goals. These include:  

• Working on large projects on JMeter can be complicated due to dedicated hardware and network requirements.  
• JMeter does not allow cloud hosting, which means if you need to test on distributed geographies that might turn out to be a hassle.  
• Since the application uses dynaon uses dynamic content and workflows, moving from one script to another during runtime by altering the JavaScript requests is difficult. It means the process could get time consuming and may even demand significant efforts.  
• Running JavaScript in the web application using JMeter is not possible since it provides limited support for processing JavaScript which might hamper the accuracy of the simulation.
• As JMeter allows report visualization for heavy loads, it can consume extensive memory, making an app run out of memory for heavy loads.  
• Last but not least, JMeter does not provide comprehensive reporting functionality.  

All in all, if you need to work on JMeter it is necessary that you understand all the KPIs related to the test project. Besides, if you have a thorough understanding of JavaScript and you can work on creating enhanced reporting and functionality mechanisms on JMeter, it can help you accelerate the entire test process. Doing so, can not only help you witness the capabilities of JMeter as a simple-to-use Performance testing tool but even ensure smooth performance testing of applications across different devices and platforms.