How to Check Load Test Results

We've seen previously how to create a new load test for a website or API endpoint using the UI from the New Load Test page using our cloud load testing tool.

Now let's focus on how to interpret the results of our load test, either a load test for a website, API or web service. The results are similar for load tests ran against websites/APIs and load tests ran with Apache JMeter test scripts.

Overview Load Test Results Page

Let's go through the results page of your load test.

Overview results page

1. Test name, test id, test location

In the top left corner of the results page, we have the name of our load test, a dropdown to switch between test runs, and a dropdown with the geographical location from where our virtual users accessed our endpoint.

2. Re-run button, the ... menu (Edit the current configuration, Set as baseline, Print or Save as PDF, Share) and the Download Files dropdown.

In the top right corner of the results page, we have the button to re-run the current load test, a ... menu with more actions and a dropdown to download the files related to the current load test configuration and results.

• Re-run current test configuration (the play button) will automatically trigger another run of the current load test. This will spin-off all the cloud instances for re-running the test with the same configuration.
• Edit the current configuration (in the ... menu) will take you to the test configuration page in case you want to change the number of virtual users, duration, ramp up time, ramp up steps, location or the endpoints. The configurations are stored per test run, so even if you change the latest configuration, all test runs will display with their correspondent test configuration. Only the latest test configuration is displayed on the Edit test page.

3. Result Tabs

The results page is split into tabbed panels for a better understanding of the metrics:

• Overview
• AI Assist
• Engine Health (JMeter test runs only)
• Timeline (paid plans)
• Trend
• Insights
• Errors
• Stats
• Logs
• Notes

4. Dropdown list of all endpoints (requests) executed during the load test.

All below metrics and results are related to the selected endpoint (request) URL. If in the load test there are more than one endpoint (request) URL, you can view the results for a different endpoint (request) URL by using the dropdown.

5. Test Status

There are a few potential statuses that are visible here:

• running - is displayed if the current load test is still running
• completed - is displayed if the current load test is finished
• aborted - is displayed if the load test was interrupted before completion.
• uploading, starting, failed and timed out are shown while the test is being prepared, or when it could not run or ran out of time.

6. Configuration

Here you can view the current test configuration, Start & End times and Response Codes Overview. Configuration details per current load test are displayed:

• Virtual Users
• Duration
• Ramp Up Time
• Ramp Up Steps
• Start Time
• End Time
• Response Codes

The configuration is stored with each run, so changing the load test configuration later does not change the results you are looking at.

7. Overview Results Metrics

• Samples - This represents the total number of requests sent to the server during the duration of the load test.
• Average Response Time - Average Response Time or Mean Response Time represents the amount of time from the moment a user sends a request until the time the application indicates that the request has completed. An Arithmetic mean for all responses (sum of all response times / count), the average value is displayed.
• 90% Response Time - 90% Response Time or 90th Percentile represents the value for which 90% of the responses (data points) are smaller and 10% are bigger, the 90th Percentile Value is displayed.
• 95% Response Time - the same, for the 95th percentile.

• Hits/second - Hits/s indicates the number of hits the application suffers every second, the average value is displayed.
• Errors % - This represents the percentage of errors encountered during the load test (4xx and 5xx response codes or other connection errors) out of the total number of samples. The total error count is on the Insights tab.

Below the metrics, the Overview also shows tables per location, the slowest requests and the most failing requests. See Results by Location and Slowest and Most Failing Requests.

8. Result charts

On the overview page there are two charts: Response time over virtual users and Hits/sec and errors.

• In the Response time over virtual users chart you can see the response times during the load test. What's interesting to discover in this chart is when, during the load test (how many virtual users are hitting your application), the response time is becoming bigger. You can view the ramp up time and the steps to increase the virtual users to the configured number.

• At the same time, in the Hits/sec and errors chart you can inspect the number of hits per second that your application suffers during the load test along with the number of errors and when they appear during the load test.

These two charts are very useful since they point out how your application behaves during the load test, and if there are any bottlenecks/errors while increasing the number of concurrent virtual users. To find the point where response time starts to climb, read Response Time vs. Virtual Users. To get a written reading of the run, see Load Test Result AI Analysis.

Exporting the Stats table as CSV

The Stats tab shows the per-label aggregate table for the run: samples, mean response time, hits per second, min and max times, the 50/90/95/99 percentiles, error counts and percentages, and sent and received KBytes per second.

Click Export CSV above the table to download exactly what the table shows, one row per label, as loadfocus-stats-<testname>-<runid>.csv. The file opens directly in Excel or Google Sheets, which makes it easy to archive run stats, diff two runs side by side, or feed the numbers into your own reporting.