Software for benchmarking a slow site?

Question

I have a homegrown CMS running on multiple ISPs. End users have complained that viewing and administering their sites is slow. We suspect the problem is with different ISPs/server that we use. I am trying to determine a benchmark so I can look for a better/more consistent hosting option. To do so - I need data.

My goal is measuring load times for:

• logged in users
• not logged in users
• performing different tasks
• at different times of the day
• with different user volumes

..and then being able to run the same tests on different servers.

Can anyone recommend software that would help me automate this?

I am on a MacBook running OSX 10.5x, but have access to Windows XP.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I have used JMeter for this type of benchmarking with good success.

You can script your test suite and then run them whenever you like, against different base URL's.

Answer 2

You can always use ab (apache bench).

# logged in user
ab -c 1 -n 100 -C SESSIONID=SESSIONVAL http://example.com/doFoo.php
""" SESSIONID=SESSIONVAL would be an your authentication tokens """

# not logged in user
ab -c 1 -n 100 http://example.com/doFoo.php

For the different times of day you'll have to run the tests at different times.

Answer 3

For that kind of "complex" tasks, which implies working with identification, cookies, and all that, I've seen those tools being used :

• OpenSTA
• JMeter

If a simpler case (just fetching one page), ab is pretty nice -- but for a complex scenario, like going from one page to another, it doesn't do the job : it is only able to fetch one page.

A possibility a bit more evolved than ab, but less complex than OpenSTA, is Siege : nice thing is it can fetch static files linked from the page you are testing -- after all, JS, CSS, and images also have an impact on the loading time, as perceived by the user !

Answer 4

There are plenty of tools to do such things.

First of all, Firebug can be a good start, but the best part are the plugins developed by Google and Yahoo :

• Yahoo YSlow
• Google PageSpeed

There is also this tool : http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ which can give you a nice report too.