Tricentis NeoLoad is a solution for continuous performance testing software to automate API and application load testing. It was developed by the French company Neotys and acquired by Tricentis, along with the company, in March 2021.
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Visual Studio Test Professional
Score 7.0 out of 10
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Microsoft's Visual Studio Test Professional is a performance testing solution.
While Tricentis NeoLoad supports SAP GUI protocols, recording and maintaining test scripts for complex SAP transactions (like those in the OTC module) can be cumbersome.
For instance, we had challenges recording a VA01 (Sales Order Creation) transaction because of the dynamic nature of SAP screen fields and session handling. NeoLoad sometimes struggles to properly correlate or handle SAP’s SAPGUI Dynpro fields automatically.
Visual Studio Test Professional is best for .NET and C# based development, which is what 90% of our developers and projects do. It is an integral part of the CI/CD pipeline for our custom made Enterprise resource planning tool. It also works very well with Azure providing seamless integration to way more functionality.
NeoLoad supports performance test engineers with a strong feature set to analyse the results. The first metric you have in mind is response time of the application. The metric satisfies the stakeholder if it meets the requirements. Otherwise, the stakeholder wants to know some comments and suggestions for improvement. I rely on the data gathered by monitoring agents when I analyse test results. The monitoring agent is a service which collects different counters from an operating system, databases, web server, etc. The results can be analysed in individual composed graphs. This is a powerful feature to deliver conclusive reports to stakeholders. Even the export of reports in various formats is helpful for communication with different stakeholders.
Our customers like the flexible license model of NeoLoad. A usual performance test project starts with the development of tests and configuration of the test environment. Finally, there is a first test execution followed by a couple of additional test executions. Usually, it is hard to say how long it takes to implement the issues based on the test results. So we usually do not know how long is the period between first and last test execution. It does not matter how long the period might be. In most of our projects we prefer daily licenses of NeoLoad. If you buy e.g. a four-day license you can use NeoLoad at four different days.
As a performance test engineer, I like the impressive APIs of NeoLoad. NeoLoad is just a performance test tool and the vendor Neotys is focused on this job. Whenever you would like to add something into a test scenario which is not mainly a performance issue you can integrate these parts by APIs which are easy to handle and very powerful. They also support you in case technologies which are not supported yet by NeoLoad. Maybe there is a new device which you want to monitor. Therefore you can report the measurements of the specific counters by the data exchange API during test execution. So you can analyse the data in the usual way. In our company we developed already a couple of features based on the APIs of NeoLoad and we are very happy with this flexibility.
There is no support for VT3270 terminal emulation to support mainframe-hosted applications.
The ramp-up and ramp-down time data are not automatically excluded from the average response time calculations. Instead, you must exclude these times manually each time you run a test.
There is not a summary graphic that shows the distribution of all of the response times on a single graph. We currently export the data as a coma separated variable (CSV) file and import into Excel to generate this summary graph.
We find NeoLoad easy to use compared to their competitors. It requires minimal coding knowledge, also it is easy to train newcomers with NeoLoad. It also offers good integration and automation capability where with less code you can automate your testing process
Visual Studio Test Professional's overall usability is extremely high quality. It is extremely functional and like all Microsoft products has a user interface that is well designed and is extremely user friendly. Any functionality which I looked for, I was able to either understand immediately or find a user guide online.
This is the only area where we strongly feel Tricentis needs to improve. Their support process is inadequate, representatives are not so capable of providing solutions at one shot without consulting their internal engineering teams. Most importantly, the time they take to resolve simple issues is huge and at many times hampered our work.
My team has always been able to troubleshoot with the help of customer support (and even schedule a virtual meeting!) in a timely manner. The support is provided immediately and with the necessary knowledge to answer/solve any questions/problems I or my team experience.
Tricentis NeoLoad is easier to use, with simpler steps to follow to record/write test scripts and to design scenarios. It is scalable and comparatively provides overall benefits in a fair cost. Neoload also provides APIs for anyone to leverage and build on top of the existing features. This adds up as an advantage.
When using Azure Devops, it only has a basic test plan while using the extension, and it is better suited if you only use Azure Devops, but VS test professional provides comprehended test execution and management as most of the developers and testers use Visual Studio to develop their apps and publish their builds.
Improved user experience: By identifying and fixing performance issues during testing, Tricentis NeoLoad has helped improve the overall user experience of our applications. This has increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as increased revenue as users are now more likely to use the application or purchase products or services as a result of a better user experience.
Reduced risk of downtime: By identifying and fixing performance issues before they occur in production, Tricentis NeoLoad has helped reduce the risk of downtime. Downtime can be costly in terms of lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction, so reducing the risk of downtime has had a positive impact on overall business objectives.
Cost savings: We have been able to identify and fix performance issues before they occur in production, avoiding the costs associated with downtime, such as lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction.
Faster performance testing: Tricentis NeoLoad has enabled our teams to perform performance testing more quickly by automating the process of simulating user loads and measuring response times, throughput, and error rates.
Visual Studio Test professional fits right in with the other Microsoft Lifecycle Management tools.
End to end, Development, Test, Deployment and Delivery assures the pipeline is continuous. Visual Studio Test Professional is an integral part of that pipeline.
Familiarity with Microsoft Tools makes usability intuitive, makes it easy to ramp up our Testers.
