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

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)
OpenText Silk Performer
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
22nd
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 March 2026, in the Load Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 11.7%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Silk Performer is 1.6%, 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)11.7%
OpenText Silk Performer1.6%
Other86.7%
Load Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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 is a very systematic tool for anyone to use, and even someone who is actually a first-time user of LoadRunner can get a lot of benefit out of the tool."
"The solution supports a lot of protocols."
"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 Analysis feature makes it easy to analyze cross-data and we can pin to the focus period."
"For me as a user, the flexibility in different protocols and things like that which can be tested with the tool."
"The initial setup and installation of the software were very easy and straightforward."
"The tool's most valuable features are scripting and automation."
"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, and we used LoadRunner to optimize our database and website."
"A good monitoring tool, simple to script and easy to configure."
 

Cons

"Premium support is great, but before that when we just had general support, it was not all that great."
"LoadRunner is a well-rounded, polished tool – but it does need more improvement when it comes to it application of load, more flexibility mid-test would be nice."
"Remote Load Generators has issues in identifying objects on dynamic web pages"
"I would like to have better support for adding more users per load generator."
"Instead of having too many graphs and tabs, use the analysis section to get a more simplified defect analysis."
"In terms of resource management, you need a lot of high capacity boxes if you need to generate a load of 1,000 or 2,000 users."
"The product is pretty heavy and should be more lightweight."
"It needs to be easier to use. I know LoadRunner so I think it's a tool that's difficult to understand."
"If you have a large amount of data, the solution can struggle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a licensing cost that is expensive."
"The price is a bit on the high side, but it is still affordable."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"The cost depends greatly on the needs of the testing engagement."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis and is relatively expensive."
"The licensing model is complex. You have to pick up the protocol and the number of concurrent users, and then select the level of concurrent users. For example, there would be one price for 100 to 500 users and another for 500 to 2000 users. If you choose two protocols, then you will have to pay twice the amount depending on the number of concurrent users."
"There is an annual license required to use Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional. There are not any additional costs other than the licensing fees to use it."
"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."
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
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
6%
Healthcare Company
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

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

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...
Ask a question
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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, Tricentis, Perforce and others in Load Testing Tools. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.