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OpenText LoadRunner Professional vs ReadyAPI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 5, 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

OpenText LoadRunner Profess...
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Load Testing Tools (4th)
ReadyAPI
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText LoadRunner Professional is 13.5%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ReadyAPI is 2.8%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

HelenSague - PeerSpot reviewer
A sophisticated tool that supports many languages and works with all kinds of applications
I do not have any big challenges with LoadRunner. I only have some issues with load generators. It is a very common issue, and I hope it will be resolved in the latest release. For example, when we start to run our tests, users get the message that the load generator exceeded 80% of the CPU utilization. Even when the number of users is less, we get these messages. I am trying to resolve it, but it is not going. It is annoying. It is not a failure, but I hope that it will be resolved. IBM WebSphere MQ testing can be a bit challenging. It can handle that, but I hope that they will build more and more capabilities. We do a huge amount of testing for messaging. Just like aviation, the railway industry is based on messaging. There is messaging to build trains and messaging to create some bills. There are many train movements. Everything involves messaging. I wish that it will be developed more for IBM WebSphere testing. Monitoring is okay, but for testing, I currently have to create Java users. I have to load a lot of libraries from IBM WebSphere and so on.
SandeepSingh9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows you to parameterize in one place for the changes to reflect everywhere and lets you customize the environment, but its load testing feature needs improvement, and costs need to be cheaper
One of the features of ReadyAPI that's worth mentioning is that it allows you to parameterize. I'm working with more than two hundred resources, so I don't have to go and make a small change at each point every time. I have the option to just parameterize in one place for the changes to reflect everywhere. Another valuable feature of ReadyAPI is that it provides a customized environment. In my company, you work in different environments, such as QA, UAT, and LT, so the URLs for every environment are different. In ReadyAPI, you can customize your environment, set it up, then start working on it. Another feature worth mentioning that's offered in ReadyAPI is automating your test value as the tool allows Groovy scripting. In your test case, you can use a Groovy script that says that in a particular test case, you have ten resources, but you just want to exhibit five and that you don't want to exhibit the remaining five. You can write a small Groovy script that lets you execute just five resources out of the ten resources. I also like that ReadyAPI allows you to read the data from CFC and Excel. It also allows you to create or customize your data, but that only works at a certain point because every application has its specific data. ReadyAPI cannot generate every data, but when I'm posting and I want to generate a random name, such as a first name, I can do it in ReadyAPI. The tool also has many different features which I find valuable, including Git integration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are various languages that they allow those programs to be written in, whether you want to use Java or something else."
"The solution can handle a huge amount of workloads, it's quite scalable."
"The stability of Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional is very high. It is the leading tool for stability."
"One of the most valuable features of LoadRunner Professional is the wide range of protocols it supports, especially the web user v user types."
"Very useful for finding out how the system responds to load, stress, and normal situations, as well as benchmarking with other industry competitors. It also improved our response time, memory delegation, and CPU delegation. In addition, we used LoadRunner to optimize our database and website."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The solution supports a lot of protocols."
"The number of protocols that it supports, and especially, for example, when it talks about SAP GUI-based performance testing."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"For anyone who does not have experience with automation, ReadyAPI provides a sense of comfort, especially for testers who find it hard to go directly into coding."
"The most valuable features of ReadyAPI are the scripting tools and the connectivity to external data sources, such as Excel and PDF files. There are plenty of useful features that are useful, such as automating flexibility and usability. Overall, the solution is easy to use."
"Reporting is more robust than other products because test reports can be exported in multiple ways."
"Technical support from SmartBear is commendable."
"The Excel sheet feature is good."
"It's great for those that don't have as much exposure to programming."
"ReadyAPI's best features are that it's user-friendly and its behavior-driven development is flexible."
 

Cons

"The tool needs to work on capture script feature."
"The debugging capability should be improved."
"The only scenario we see a complexity is when we have single-page applications where JavaScript is talking to the server and coming back. That's the only scenario where we find some difficulties."
"The product is not stable and reliable in the version we are currently using."
"LoadRunner Professional's parameter data could be improved."
"Instead of having too many graphs and tabs, use the analysis section to get a more simplified defect analysis."
"The product is pretty heavy and should be more lightweight."
"If they can make LoadRunner more comprehensive, it would really help."
"Areas for improvement include the security files, endpoints, and process sessions."
"It doesn't have connectors to the NoSQL database. This is one of the things where they do not have a very solid strategy today. Other solutions have an in-built mechanism where I can directly and easily connect. An API is more around a user submitting a request on the frontend. It then hits the backend, puts the data, and responds back. If I am hitting MongoDB or NoSQL databases, I do not have ready-made inbuilt solutions in ReadyAPI that can easily help me in automating it faster. In our organization, we deal with NoSQL databases, and therefore, we need Groovy. We just cannot have a connector from ReadyAPI to do that. I have to write Groovy scripts. If you have themes that are predominantly using MongoDB, it leads to more maintenance and support activity because we are introducing more code into our commission. In terms of additional features, it can have cloud support. This is one of the things where we are getting into cloud support. We'll see how it works, but it is one of the doubts that we still have."
"The UI is not user-friendly."
"Can be improved by including an inherent feature for UI automation."
"ReadyAPI's customer support isn't that great, particularly their response time."
"There is room for improvement in ReadyAPI, particularly in the user interface."
"The reporting is not very robust and needs to be improved."
"Better compatibility or more support for the older versions would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing model, especially when involving partners, could use some improvement."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"LoadRunner Professional's licensing costs are on the higher side, apart from the Community Edition."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"The pricing model and the software licensing model could be better."
"The solution's pricing is expensive."
"This is a cheap solution when you consider the money that will be saved in testing."
"We use fixed licenses, and the last time I checked, I want to say it's around $680 per seat per year."
"It costs approximately $200 000 Taiwan Dollars for three years."
"The cost of a license is probably around $1,000 to $2,000. Accounting is done by my leadership. I am more into implementations and making sure all things and processes are taken care of and the frameworks are maintained and managed."
"ReadyAPI is moderately priced, with added costs for more plugins."
"There are costs in addition to the licensing fee. For example, if you want to add the load testing you would pay more."
"We have approximately 12 licenses in place. There are other solutions that are more expensive than ReadyAPI that have more features, but if the scope of the project is limited to SOAP and REST service, then this is the best option."
"It is expensive. Each user needs to be licensed, and there are different licenses within the product. It starts with 750 euros for a single user per year, but for the full product features, you need to pay a lot more. There are three versions. This cost is for functional testing, and then there is a cost for load testing and virtual services. If you want to use these areas with the functional test license, you are limited. You hit some limits in these functions. If you have all three licenses, then you have full functionality for the API."
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Comparison Review

it_user104961 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Insurance Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
Technical support needs to be faster, and the pricing should be more competitive. The virtual table server feature should be reintroduced. Some AI capabilities should be added. There should be an '...
What do you like most about ReadyAPI?
The performance testing capabilities are very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ReadyAPI?
Currently, we don't extensively use the performance testing due to license costs. License prices can be a factor in considering which technologies to adopt.
What needs improvement with ReadyAPI?
In native teams and cloud environments, there is room for improvement. I'm considering the use of AWS and its Lambda functionalities prepared by the vendor. These are more so points from my wishlis...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
Ready API
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Healthcare Data Solutions (HDS)
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText LoadRunner Professional vs. ReadyAPI and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.