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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs k6 Open Source comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

k6 Open Source
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (9th)
OpenText Professional Perfo...
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of k6 Open Source is 4.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 11.2%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Load Testing Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)11.2%
k6 Open Source4.4%
Other84.4%
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ArtemCheremisin - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance Test Engineer at BETBY
Lighter on the RAM and has native Grafana support
The tool's big advantage is that it is more performance-test oriented for experienced testers who know what they are doing. In a normal working setup, performance engineers frequently work with DevOps and development teams. For these teams, k6 Open Source's syntax is much simpler and easier to understand and apply in the working process. Recently, I had a case where I was using another tool, and there wasn't enough memory for it because it required more RAM. k6 Open Source, on the other hand, is lighter and doesn't have a UI, which is beneficial. An engineer I was training could use k6 Open Source scripts even without my help. The tool is more efficient and has native support with Grafana, as both are developed by the same company. This integration enhances monitoring and loss ratio tracking. Thanks to its intelligent GUI, k6 Open Source's design is simpler, particularly for complex scenarios. When we need to manage hundreds of thousands or millions of transactions per minute, the solution becomes a game-changer compared to JMeter.
SD
Assistant Consultant at Tata Consultancy
Experience a decade of seamless performance with robust support
I would like to improve OpenText LoadRunner Professional based on what we discussed in our last discussion, as those points remain similar and applicable. For future updates, I would like to see the same features that people generally prefer. I find that AI functionality in OpenText LoadRunner Professional should be improved and more accessible; if we get a chance to work with that, then we can check how much it helps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's big advantage is that it is more performance-test oriented for experienced testers who know what they are doing. In a normal working setup, performance engineers frequently work with DevOps and development teams. For these teams, k6 Open Source's syntax is much simpler and easier to understand and apply in the working process."
"The standout feature of k6 is its strong focus on API performance testing."
"The solution is quite stable."
"My favorite feature in LoadRunner Professional is its ability to group scripts under separate IDs."
"The front loader and the reporting features are the most valuable aspects of OpenText LoadRunner Professional."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create performance test cases quickly and then execute them. It provides a lot of powerful features to do that very efficiently and effectively."
"The number of protocols that it supports, and especially, for example, when it talks about SAP GUI-based performance testing."
"LoadRunner is a very sophisticated tool, and I can use many languages. For example, I can use Java. I can use C++. I can test the Internet of Things, FTP, mail, and Active Directory. It is very useful."
"It is a good and stable tool."
"The tool's most valuable features are scripting and automation."
 

Cons

"One area where k6 could improve is by introducing a GUI similar to JMeter."
"There should be more integration with more open-source platforms."
"LoadRunner experiences high resource utilization. Even though we have machines with higher configurations, I've observed this behavior. Heavy traffic recording results in the tool hanging. So heavy traffic recording makes the tool slow."
"If the support of the protocols was the same throughout the other protocols and it was there evenly, then I would rate the product higher."
"There is room for improvement of the pilot processing, the dump analysis, and forwarding results based on the dump analysis. We have a generator, root controller, different agents, and an analyzer, so all of these are very important when it comes to LoadRunner."
"The product is not stable and reliable in the version we are currently using."
"The pricing could be lower."
"If they can make LoadRunner more comprehensive, it would really help."
"The monitoring technology in LoadRunner could be improved. It depends on another tool called SiteScope, but they only took a part of the features of SiteScope. They need to improve on that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing of Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional could improve. If it can be easier and the concurrent run can be included with the current total number of users, it would be helpful."
"The fee for LoadRunner Professional is very high - about US$500 per user."
"LoadRunner Professional is an expensive product."
"OpenText LoadRunner Enterprise's pricing is reasonable."
"Pricing depends on our choices because it depends on what type of protocol we are getting, what type of licensing we are getting, and what kind of relationships we have with HP and Micro Focus."
"It is competing with other products that may cost significantly less or may be available as open-source. Because of that it is relatively expensive."
"I don't know the licensing cost, but I think that you would get a discount for normal usage. I think there are different yearly options for different types of usage. It is not only how many users, but also whether it is shareable or not and other criteria involved in each feature. There are additional fees for the users and hardware linked to the processing."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the solution a five."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
Penetration and Neoload Tester at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Apr 13, 2014
LoadRunner vs NeoLoad
The six phases of an IT project Enthusiasm Disillusionment Panic Search for the guilty Punishment of the innocent (the performance tester) Praise and rewards for the incompetent non-participants This article has been put together as part of an evaluation of the performance test tools NeoLoad and…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
7%
Media Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
When designing a workload model offers a good range of possibilities for creating goal-oriented scenarios, which helps us understand and meet SLAs.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I have mentioned many advantages about this product, but to discuss disadvantages or areas that could be improved, I would need to consult with my engineers who are working on it. So far I have not...
 

Also Known As

Load Impact
Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

rackspace, salesforce.com, IBM, servicenow, Nasdaq, JWT
JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs. k6 Open Source and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.