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OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs SmartBear LoadNinja comparison

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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 Performance Testing Tools
1st
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
16th
Ranking in Load Testing Tools
15th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) is 16.8%, up from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear LoadNinja is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional)16.8%
SmartBear LoadNinja2.0%
Other81.2%
Performance 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.
Kapil Tarka - PeerSpot reviewer
Test Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to use with good documentation and helpful support
It's a new tool when I compare it with LoadViewer and HP LoadRunner. It needs time to mature. For example, it needs to improve concurrency. When you run a test suite, your scripts will generate some test data. If we are running a banking application and then we are running a full end-to-end suite, there are many actions that need testing. There's a lot of data getting generated. There should be a variable that we can store for later in our later test cases. We need data management and dynamic data generation to be able to capture the data which is generated.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite a good tool, it supports a medical protocol which we tried to explore in other products but none of them had, and overall it is pretty simple and easy to use."
"LoadRunner Professional's best features are that it's easy to capture scenarios and create scripts for testing, the testing runs smoothly with small resources, and it's very easy to create reports with a variety of indicators."
"Micro Focus LoadRunner is the best tool in the market."
"The reporting mechanism is a valuable feature that generates good reports."
"LoadRunner is a very systematic tool for anyone to use. Even someone who is actually a first time user of LoadRunner can actually get a lot of benefit out of the tool."
"This is a stable product - I've dealt with it over the past 15 years and it's stable."
"It has good protocol coverage."
"LoadRunner Professional allowed us to load test potential new payroll solutions that would be implemented throughout the entire organization so that we knew which was best suited to performing well under pressure."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"We are happy with the technical support."
"But for now, we are happy with what have been using."
"The most powerful aspect is the ease of use."
 

Cons

"I would rate it 6 out of 10, because LoadRunner is a vast thing, starting from those scenarios and then getting more into users, putting more points, correlation, load testing, and benchmarking."
"The flexibility could be improved. For example, there are some use cases where I prefer to use NeoLoad rather than LoadRunner because of the flexibility that it provides."
"Complexity. LoadRunner is not simple to learn by installing it and "doing it"."
"HP as a company has been slow to move to support modern technologies e.g. Oracle ADF."
"Technical support is challenging. We have premier support for ALM and Performance Center, and we usually get inexperienced engineers when we contact tech support."
"It needs to be easier to use. I know LoadRunner so I think it's a tool that's difficult to understand."
"The reporting feature in this tool needs to be improved. After using it, in my opinion it seems a little complicated in some aspects."
"The infrastructure support can be improved because there are a lot of limitations with the hardware that you can use."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced. It requires attention. Clients have expressed dissatisfaction with the price."
"On a smaller scale, there will be no budget issues, but as we expand to a larger user base, I believe we will face some pricing challenges."
"It needs time to mature."
"As we ran the test, we couldn't see the real-time results of how the solution behaved for 200 to 400 virtual users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"LoadRunner is more expensive than some competing products."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"It is a high-cost investment, particularly for companies with small budgets or limited testing needs."
"For licensing, we pay a lot for it. But the incentive is the support we get with it, that we pay once, and we are set."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced."
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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
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
19%
University
11%
Construction Company
9%
 

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...
What advice do you have for others considering Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional?
I can provide additional advice after consulting with my team. I am open to being contacted via email for any clarifications about my review. I rate OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (L...
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Also Known As

Micro Focus LoadRunner Professional, Micro Focus LoadRunner, HPE LoadRunner, LoadRunner
SmartBear LoadComplete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, GOME, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, RMIT University, Virgin Media
Falafel Software
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Professional Performance Engineering (LoadRunner Professional) vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.