Key takeaways
- Pick the KPIs before the comparison, or you will choose the ones that flatter the new build.
- Compare against a stored baseline rather than memory of the last run.
- Change one thing between builds if you want the comparison to mean anything.
Ensuring your web application’s performance improves or remains consistent over time is crucial. If you’re curious about how to track these changes between different builds, here’s a concise guide to get you started:
Step 1: Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
First, decide which aspects of your application you’re interested in comparing. This could be anything from page load times and API response times to CPU and memory usage across builds.
Is Your Infrastructure Ready for Global Traffic Spikes?
Unexpected load surges can disrupt your services. With LoadFocus’s cutting-edge Load Testing solutions, simulate real-world traffic from multiple global locations in a single test. Our advanced engine dynamically upscales and downscales virtual users in real time, delivering comprehensive reports that empower you to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks before they affect your users.
Step 2: Create a Benchmark
Utilize a tool like Apache JMeter to craft a performance test script. This script will act as your benchmark, simulating user interactions to measure the KPIs you’re interested in.
Step 3: Test Your Initial Build
Run your JMeter test against the current version of your application. Monitor the system’s performance closely and save these initial test results for future comparison.
Step 4: Deploy and Test the New Build
After deploying the new build of your application on the same environment (to ensure hardware and network conditions don’t affect the results), rerun your JMeter test.
Think your website can handle a traffic spike?
Fair enough, but why leave it to chance? Uncover your website’s true limits with LoadFocus’s cloud-based Load Testing for Web Apps, Websites, and APIs. Avoid the risk of costly downtimes and missed opportunities—find out before your users do!
Step 5: Compare and Analyze
Now, it’s time to compare the results from both tests. Look for improvements or degradations in performance by examining metrics such as response times, latency, throughput, and bytes per second.
A Pro Tip: Consistency is key when comparing performance. Ensure that both tests are run under identical system conditions to avoid skewed results.
Simplify Your Life with Load Focus
If this process seems daunting, Load Focus is here to help. As a Cloud Load and Performance Service, Load Focus not only allows you to save all your test configurations and results but also makes comparing these metrics between different test runs a breeze. With its intuitive compare functionality, you can easily visualize changes in response times, latency, throughput, and more on a single chart.
So why not take the guesswork out of performance testing? Sign up for Load Focus, give it a try, and experience a hassle-free way to ensure your web application is always performing at its best. Say goodbye to lost test results and hello to clear, actionable insights.
LoadFocus is an all-in-one Cloud Testing Platform for Websites and APIs for Load Testing, Apache JMeter Load Testing, Page Speed Monitoring and API Monitoring!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I compare two builds fairly?
Decide the KPIs first, such as page load, API response time, CPU and memory. Choosing them afterwards invites picking the measures that flatter the newer build.
What should I compare against?
A stored baseline rather than a recollection of the last run. Memory of a previous result is not precise enough to detect the size of regression that matters.
Why change only one thing between builds?
Because with several changes in flight you can see that something moved but not what moved it, which leaves you no action to take.