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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs OpenText Silk Performer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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 Professional Perfo...
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (2nd)
OpenText Silk Performer
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
24th
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 August 2026, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 14.4%, up from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Silk Performer is 1.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Load Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)14.4%
OpenText Silk Performer1.5%
Other84.1%
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Assistant Director at Synapxe
Has enabled my team to identify bottlenecks effectively and deliver reliable performance analysis across projects
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 heard of any significant issues. I can gather specific improvement suggestions from my architect and provide that information later.
SR
Principal Software Architect at OpenText
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

"LoadRunner has a variety of options and different protocols that will support all types of applications categories like web application, monitor and any internal applications or desktop applications."
"Its variety of testing tools for different applications is of great benefit, as well as its integration capabilities with other testing and monitoring solutions."
"The most valuable features are the ease of using it to create scripts and the broad number of technologies supported, including apps, SAP, and everything on the web."
"The solution can handle a huge amount of workloads, it's quite scalable."
"LoadRunner Professional's most valuable features are the easy setup, the auto-correlation feature, the high number of protocols, the analysis, and the reporting."
"One of the most valuable features of LoadRunner Professional is the wide range of protocols it supports, especially the web user v user types."
"The most important feature for us is that it supports a lot of protocols because we support all of them, including HTTP, FTP, mainframe, and others."
"It's helped my organization to identify performance problems in the test environment before they occur in production."
"A good monitoring tool, simple to script and easy to configure."
"We haven't used Silk on any project where it hasn't been able to support whatever we have needed."
 

Cons

"The license cost is much more compared to other tools available, but it will give you a complete package for load testing your application."
"Network monitoring."
"The pricing could be lower."
"Support for Microsoft Dynamics needs improvement."
"Scripting should be simpler, it becomes very complex many times."
"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."
"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 technical support of Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional could improve. I had an issue with the licensing and their response time is slow. They can improve on this in the future."
"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."
"If you have a large amount of data, the solution can struggle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution's pricing is expensive."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"I would still consider LoadRunner as an expensive tool and you get a LoadRunner and the Performance Center."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It is reasonable. We pay the cost, but we have everything. We have a big set of licenses for SAP and other applications. We have all kinds of licenses."
"The pricing model, especially when involving partners, could use some improvement."
"This is not a cheap product."
Information not available
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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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise67
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I work only with the performance testing tools and not with OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) for mobile and web applications. With performance testing, I am t...
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Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
Micro Focus Silk Performer, Silk Performer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
University of Colorado, Medidata, Monash University
Find out what your peers are saying about Apache, OpenText, Tricentis and others in Load Testing Tools. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.