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Apache JMeter vs OpenText Silk Performer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Apache JMeter
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (1st), API Testing Tools (3rd)
OpenText Silk Performer
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of Apache JMeter is 22.7%, down from 23.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Silk Performer is 1.0%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sreenivasula Mukkamalla - PeerSpot reviewer
Leveraging cost-effective customization with powerful plugins but complexity reduction needed
Apache JMeter offers plugins for reporting and preparing test scenarios. It allows recording to customization, letting you download plugins to connect with databases or external systems. Despite being open source, it offers features comparable to paid tools, and its ability to customize and expand is particularly useful. Additionally, its open-source nature makes it cost-effective.
SR
Scripting and basic test executions are good features; configuring the workload for tests is easy
In terms of areas of improvement, I would say the Silk Performance Explorer tool, which is used for monitoring and analysis, can be improved because that's where we spend most of our time when we're analyzing the test data. Any enhancements that can be provided in the monitoring sphere would be useful. When you have a large amount of data the tool struggles with it and will sometimes crash, or there may be issues with too many metrics being collected when running a test. The interface for the scripting could be more feature-rich. Integration with tools like Prometheus or Grafana where we can visualize the data would be great. As things stand, we have to use one monitoring tool to visualize data and another for visualizing the test metrics. Integration would enable us to see the metrics from Silk and correlate that with the metrics from other servers or other processes we're monitoring. It would save having to look at Silk data and server metrics separately. It's the way things are going with newer tools. I think the solution is being phased out by Micro Focus and their emphasis is focused more on LoadRunner. We haven't seen much development in the last few years.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We are using it just for load testing. We are using its free version, and it is scalable."
"Due to process automation, I don't have to prepare reports, making it the perfect solution."
"The most valuable feature in JMeter is the Thread Group, which helps us to see whether the performance is good."
"User-friendly and open source."
"We find the load testing feature valuable."
"The solution's initial setup is easy."
"When someone in our organization wants to test web applications, they use Apache JMeter since they face no hurdles while using the solution."
"The most valuable feature for us is the available information on the forums and to be able to discuss and get answers from the people that are involved in using this tool."
"A good monitoring tool, simple to script and easy to configure."
 

Cons

"Given that Apache JMeter is a free and open-source tool, documentation improvement may not be a major concern, as it is mostly contributed on a voluntary basis. The essential information is already available. However, in terms of the interface, there are occasional bugs, and the tool may not address them as quickly as some users would like. Fixing defects and bugs might take a considerable amount of time, with users sometimes having to wait for several months or even a year for the next release to address specific issues."
"The UI of the solution needs to be better. The UI takes up a lot of our bandwidth."
"One area for improvement is the ability to decrease load suddenly during tests. Currently, we need to use multiple separate JMeter instances to simulate reductions in load, which isn't ideal."
"One of the drawbacks of JMeter is that it can't handle a large amount of load, which forces us to switch to other tools when we need to load more than a 5,000 or 10,000 user load."
"The memory utilization in JMeter is very poor."
"Running JMeter in GUI mode uses a lot of memory, which means we need to switch to a non-GUI mode when using a heavy load."
"I sometimes found the documentation to be not as explanatory as I would've liked it. In the cases that I can think of, I was looking for a rather hand-holding approach with Step A, B, and C, but then I realized that with a product that is open source like this, you can't do handholding. That is because there are so many different uses and different unique environments and setups for it, but I remember thinking a few times that if they only just said this."
"Modeling a test is difficult. If you don't have much knowledge, you won't be able to do it easily. Testing APIs is also difficult."
"If you have a large amount of data, the solution can struggle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"The solution is open source with no user fees or licenses."
"Everything is included, and there are no additional costs."
"I was using the free version of the software."
"The solution is open-source."
"JMeter is open source, so there are no licensing costs associated with it."
"Since it's free, there's no need for extensive support or improvements in pricing."
"We are using the free version, and if required, we can easily switch to the other version."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Sports Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Postman compare with Apache JMeter?
Postman lets you easily define variables, which then get updated automatically. This is a huge time-saver and makes processes very efficient. We can also export the test cases we create and share t...
How does BlazeMeter compare with Apache JMeter?
Blazemeter is a continuous testing platform that provides scriptless test automation. It unifies functional and performance testing, enabling users to monitor and test public and private APIs. We ...
What do you like most about Apache JMeter?
I appreciate JMeter's simplicity and power for performance testing.
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Also Known As

JMeter
Micro Focus Silk Performer, Silk Performer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AOL, Orbitz, Innopath Software, PrepMe, Sapient, Corporate Express Australia, CSIRO, Ephibian, Talis, DATACOM, ALALOOP, eFusion, Panter, Sourcepole, University of Western Cape
University of Colorado, Medidata, Monash University
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, Tricentis, Perforce and others in Load Testing Tools. Updated: March 2025.
845,589 professionals have used our research since 2012.