What is JMeter?
Maybe most of you have heard about JMeter before reaching this article.
It is a testing tool developed by Apache.
The 1st version is dated March 2001 but JMeter still has a great health nowadays.
It is completely written in JAVA.
Jmeter is frequently used for Load tests but it also supports assertions to ensure that the date received is right, and many possibilities for generating reports.
Using a .jmx file previously created that makes requests against our target application to test (It can be able to generate several types of requests: HTTP, FTP, LDAP,…).
Besides, in the .jmx file it is possible to specify how many users of each kind run the requests against the application simulating one or several users groups working against the tested app.
The data generated by the tool for each request, can be canalized through a type of component that provides the GUI interface, called listeners.
But… why should I learn to use JMeter?
Advantages
- JMeter UX is pretty simple and achievable.
- Besides, there is a a huge amount of documentation and tutorial available.
- It is a tool that lets you perform functional tests, but it is also very helpful to run regression tests of web applications.
- An unbeatable price, it’s free!
- JMeter also lets you run distributed tests in different computers, that will behave as clients.
Disadvantages
- JMeter does NOT behave as a browser.
- It implies, for example, that it does not save or send cookies by default, it does not interpret Javascript code…
- GUI interface and result reports are not very pleasants
- It is a bit unuseful making some actions like copying components
Besides, the versatility of JMeter can be subtantially improved by plugins.
In order to search more info, do not hesitate to look up the user’s manual of this great tool.
