{"id":1645,"date":"2020-09-11T05:31:11","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T05:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2023-11-06T09:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T09:01:12","slug":"should-i-use-the-jmeter-gui-for-running-the-load-tests-against-my-application-api","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/should-i-use-the-jmeter-gui-for-running-the-load-tests-against-my-application-api","title":{"rendered":"Should I use the JMeter GUI for running the load tests against my application\/API?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span><!-- pn-tldr --><h2>Key takeaways<\/h2><ul><li>No. The GUI is for building and debugging plans, not for generating load.<\/li><li>The GUI consumes the memory and CPU you wanted for virtual users.<\/li><li>Run non-GUI with results written to file, then open the file to analyse.<\/li><\/ul><!-- \/pn-tldr -->\n<p class=\"lead\">Often software developers get to ask themselves the question: Should I just run the tests in the GUI now that I finished developing them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The answer is pretty simple, NO.<\/strong>  You should not use the GUI when running the tests. The GUI should be used only for developing the tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For running the tests you should run JMeter from command line.  Use the GUI only for Test creation and Test debugging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For load testing, use CLI Mode (was NON GUI):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><code>jmeter -n -t [jmx file] -l [results file] -e -o [Path to web report folder]<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why use JMeter in CLI Mode\/ Non GUI line mode for running the tests<\/strong> ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reasons are the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>increase the throughput that JMeter is capable of on your hardware configuration<\/li><li>increase the number of threads compared with running in GUI mode<\/li><li>decrease the memory and CPU that <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/which-language-is-used-in-jmeter\" title=\"\">JMeter uses<\/a> during heavy test scenarios<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Written by <a href=\"https:\/\/coursinator.com\/instructor\/cristian-vazzolla\" class=\"broken_link\">Cristian Vazzolla<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/\">LoadFocus<\/a> is cloud Performance, load and stress testing tool which provides the infrastructure and the ability to run all these tests in less than a few minutes, keep history of the results, compare different runs to inspect performance improvements or performance degradation.<\/p>\n<!-- pn-faq --><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><h3>Should I run load tests from the JMeter GUI?<\/h3><p>No. The interface is for building and debugging plans. Running a real test through it is the most common reason a load test produces numbers that do not reflect the server.<\/p><h3>What does the GUI cost?<\/h3><p>The memory and CPU you wanted for virtual users. Rendering results in real time is expensive, and it competes directly with generating load.<\/p><h3>What should I do instead?<\/h3><p>Run non-GUI with results written to a file, then open that file to analyse. You get the full detail without paying for it during the run.<\/p><!-- \/pn-faq --><!-- pn-related-reading --><h2>Related reading<\/h2><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/k6-vs-jmeter\">k6 vs JMeter: A Practical Load Testing Comparison<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/how-to-start-apache-jmeter-in-non-graphical-non-gui-mode\">How to start Apache JMeter in non-graphical (non-GUI) mode?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/how-to-increase-heap-size-in-jmeter\">How to Increase Heap Size in JMeter?<\/a><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span>Key takeaways No. The GUI is for building and debugging plans, not for generating load. The GUI consumes the memory and CPU you wanted for virtual users. Run non-GUI with results written to file, then open the file to analyse. Often software developers get to ask themselves the question: Should I just run the tests&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/should-i-use-the-jmeter-gui-for-running-the-load-tests-against-my-application-api\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read Should I use the JMeter GUI for running the load tests against my application\/API?\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[292,291],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apache-jmeter","category-load-testing","tag-jmeter-cli-mode","tag-jmeter-gui"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2843,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/2843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}