Load UI - Free Version - Evaluation Feedback
This posting is for providing feedback - plus or minus, as to the efficacy, feature range and buginess of the Load UI tool - Free version.
I tried out the Load UI Free version with the intent of evaluating whether the Pro version was worth considering. I am happy with the sister tool - SoapUI and have tried to take advantage of some of the more advanced features there, including the ability to tie groovy scripting into the test frame work. As far as the Load UI tool, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Some of the reasons why -
* I wanted to run a complex test project with multiple levels of test suites and test cases. I did not find it very easy to run a load test that involved an entire project. Load UI only worked at the test case level, so to setup a load ui project that emulated the soap ui setup, I had to drag and drop SoapUI runners many times onto the Load UI gui.
* The Load UI gui was a little difficult to work with. Scrolling was not easy and locating where you are in your test hierarchy was difficult. It is as if you are zoomed into the lowest level of a large work sheet and can't easily get the big picture.
* The Load UI runs would report failures in the run that could not be troubleshooted since there was no effective, detailed feedback as to the cause.
* The Load UI would report failures that were suspect, since repeated runs with SoapUI and the free Apache JMeter tool, would continually run reliably with no problems.
* When working within SoapUI - adding Load Tests from that UI - I found that only the first 10 test steps would run under any test suite. I'm not sure if this is because the Free version enforces the limitation, or if this is a defect. There was no dialog to inform as to whether the free version was limited in this respect or not.
* I found that the free Apache JMeter tool was much more feature rich, run more reliably and provide better troubleshooting feedback and detailed traceability back into what was going on in individual test runs. For me, the free version of LoadUI would need to offer a lot more before considering a switch over to a paid version.
I tried out the Load UI Free version with the intent of evaluating whether the Pro version was worth considering. I am happy with the sister tool - SoapUI and have tried to take advantage of some of the more advanced features there, including the ability to tie groovy scripting into the test frame work. As far as the Load UI tool, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Some of the reasons why -
* I wanted to run a complex test project with multiple levels of test suites and test cases. I did not find it very easy to run a load test that involved an entire project. Load UI only worked at the test case level, so to setup a load ui project that emulated the soap ui setup, I had to drag and drop SoapUI runners many times onto the Load UI gui.
* The Load UI gui was a little difficult to work with. Scrolling was not easy and locating where you are in your test hierarchy was difficult. It is as if you are zoomed into the lowest level of a large work sheet and can't easily get the big picture.
* The Load UI runs would report failures in the run that could not be troubleshooted since there was no effective, detailed feedback as to the cause.
* The Load UI would report failures that were suspect, since repeated runs with SoapUI and the free Apache JMeter tool, would continually run reliably with no problems.
* When working within SoapUI - adding Load Tests from that UI - I found that only the first 10 test steps would run under any test suite. I'm not sure if this is because the Free version enforces the limitation, or if this is a defect. There was no dialog to inform as to whether the free version was limited in this respect or not.
* I found that the free Apache JMeter tool was much more feature rich, run more reliably and provide better troubleshooting feedback and detailed traceability back into what was going on in individual test runs. For me, the free version of LoadUI would need to offer a lot more before considering a switch over to a paid version.