Hacker News Reader

Comment by chops | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm just retarded, but I couldn't find the answer to my question on your site. Does your service just pound the exact page that's targeted, or does it follow links, submit forms, etc to try to simulate actual users?

View on HN

The simplest test you can run will just load a singe page, and all its dependencies (images etc) over and over again. However, if you register an account you can create your own load scripts that load different pages, with pauses in between. Paying users also get access to the recorder feature which allows you to record a session that you run in a new browser window - you surf around your site and click on things, POST forms, etc and when you're done you have a load script automatically generated that will let your simulated clients do the same thing.

We don't currently have any "crawler" mode though, where the system tries to follow links etc on the site automatically.

Wow, the recorder option sounds really cool. I didn't see that when I first scanned the site. Maybe highlight a bit more somewhere.

Yeah we only allow paying users to even see the recorder, which is probably something we need to change I think. We want to give paying users extra features, but we also need to show people what extra features they can get, otherwise they won't know if it's worth to start paying. I guess more help/documentation would help, but it would be nice if there was a way for people to test a feature before they sign up to pay. Suggestions are appreciated.

Recorder is an important part of load testing, but it sounds even more useful for functional regression testing. Record common or expensive behaviors for load testing. Record obscure or complicated behaviors so that loadimpact can tell you when you accidentally broke something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com