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ReadyAPI vs SmartBear LoadNinja comparison

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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

ReadyAPI
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (14th)
SmartBear LoadNinja
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Load Testing Tools (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of ReadyAPI is 3.1%, up from 3.1% 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 (%)
ReadyAPI3.1%
SmartBear LoadNinja2.0%
Other94.9%
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

PK
Lead QA Engineer at Msys Technologies
Experience effective testing with flexible licensing alongside pivotal insights on essential improvements
For non-functional testing, I focus on performance and security. For performance and security tests, I used REST API, SoapUI, and JMeter. These tools help us conduct thorough testing across these dimensions. I find ReadyAPI helpful especially in overcoming security issues, as we experienced slowness in the application after merging our JAR files. For instance, if a person wants to access a university database and encounters a timeout error, we learned through ReadyAPI that the issue was due to HTML protocol limits with the payload. We fine-tuned this process to display the expected data effectively. I consider ReadyAPI a cost-effective solution because it covers three verticals without needing to purchase separate tools for security, performance, or functional testing. ReadyAPI is a versatile tool for creating multiple testing frameworks and validating various parameters seamlessly. REST API is the tool I use to test all three types of articles, meaning I validate the APIs I send to my peers or clients for functional testing, and I also perform security testing to ensure the URL and data passed through multiple components adhere to policies and user privileges. This is done through functional security testing using the REST API tool, and for performance, I ensure that applications can be accessed simultaneously by multiple users without hindrance or slowness through thorough performance testing.
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

"ReadyAPI is pretty straightforward and offers many helpful features, and many things automatically get integrated into it so it is quite a useful tool."
"Without it, we cannot release anything."
"It's easy to learn how to use it."
"The performance testing capabilities are very good."
"I would say that it is a very strong tool by itself and I haven't seen any other tool that matches the capabilities from a standalone point of view."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It is very good from an integrative solution standpoint."
"The Excel sheet feature is good."
"But for now, we are happy with what have been using."
"It's a very simple tool for performance testing."
"SmartBear LoadNinja is easy to use and implement."
"We are happy with the technical support."
"The most powerful aspect is the ease of use."
 

Cons

"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."
"The overall scope of this solution is limited and could be improved."
"The solution is made up of multiple tools, and the one additional feature we'd like to have is load testing."
"The performance in some cases needs improvement. Sometimes it requires too many resources."
"To generate a test suite in API, I had to create a separate one each time because otherwise it was just override the test. Each API had to be added separately. I thought I could just have one and then create different methods, but I had to add each API separately to create the test for that. That is an area that could be improved."
"The reporting is not very robust and needs to be improved."
"In terms of features, I have already raised different change requests on the ReadyAPI side. One of the largest functions I've requested is the validation of the payload for the REST APIs."
"I don't like how they don't have a clear way to manage tests between multiple projects."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced. It requires attention. Clients have expressed dissatisfaction with the price."
"As we ran the test, we couldn't see the real-time results of how the solution behaved for 200 to 400 virtual users."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If I remember correctly, ReadyAPI costs between $5,000 to $7,000 for five thousand virtual users running it at a given point in time. Other tools, for example, Apache JMeter, can run millions of users at a given time. ReadyAPI is a tool that requires you to pay more money if you want more users to run it for performance testing. For functional testing, each ReadyAPI license costs $1,000, and you do get basic testing, and it's inclusive of one hundred users. In my company, if there's a need for more than one hundred users, my team uses Apache JMeter because it's futile to end up paying $5,000 or $6,000 annually just for performance testing, which can be done in Apache JMeter as well. Given the circumstances, my team does performance testing only towards the end of the fiscal year when the regulatory testing of applications takes place. If I have to run ReadyAPI just for two days or just for ten or fifteen odd days, then it's not worth paying $5,000 for the license with the small number of users provided by ReadyAPI."
"It costs approximately $200 000 Taiwan Dollars for three years."
"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."
"The price was around $6,000 for one license, but I don't remember exactly. It is definitely expensive. Our organization was planning on having multiple licenses for this year."
"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."
"For each license, they charge the same amount, which is less than $1,000 for each desktop license."
"We use fixed licenses, and the last time I checked, I want to say it's around $680 per seat per year."
"The solution is dynamically priced so you only pay for what you use."
"Certainly, the cost could be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing 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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise28
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
One issue I found with ReadyAPI is related to event listeners compared to JMeter or SoapUI. We created an in-house dashboard to display automation runs across projects, which required manual updati...
What is your primary use case for ReadyAPI?
My experience with Katalon Studio is that we used Katalon for one of our projects, and then I started leveraging Katalon by integrating it with AI tools, AP tools, and aptly tools. Aptly tool is an...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Ready API
SmartBear LoadComplete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Data Solutions (HDS)
Falafel Software
Find out what your peers are saying about ReadyAPI vs. SmartBear LoadNinja and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.