New Modern Open Source Performance Testing Tool : Locust

If you are bored with using old fashioned Java GUI to test the performance of your applications, then you should try Locust. Jmeter, which is old fashioned as I mentioned, is very mature and used by a big community but you have create your test case with an ugly GUI as much features as allows you. For me the best part of Locust is that you can write your test case with Python which is my favourite language and it is very simple to learn. The installation is very simple, you just need to type:

> pip install locustio

Some feature / deficiency of Locust: 

• You can write your test case in Python
• You can define the user time consumption on a page with min_wait and max_wait as milliseconds in locust class so that get a real user simulation. 
• You can give weight for each test cases so you can simulate real user behaviours like during a specific period of time: 1 person signs up, 10 persons login, 60 persons visit pages, ... 
• You can make http request as you do in your code such as get, post, put, delete, head, patch and options. So you can send request directly to your api, like: self.client.post("/login", {"username":"testuser", "password":"secret"}) 
• While Jmeter is thread based so it uses a separate thread to create a user but Locust id co-routine and work asynchronously as you see after running the number of user for each case. This means that you can create more user in Locust than in Jmeter.  
• With the PyQuery library, you can query throughout your interface. For example you can find all the links in html and then send requests to respondent pages.
• There is some problem with single page application like if there is "#" in your url it behaves as there is no url.
• There is no graphic option but you can hack everything.

You can check the script below which is written for www.myhabit.com to run performance testing for the link on "/my-account" page. With the script, we are loging on the page and then we can open the my account page. The result may not be different when you want to test because it depends on many factors. 

	parser.add_option(
	'-H', '--host',
	dest="host",
	default=None,
	help="Host to load test in the following format: http://10.21.32.33"
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'--web-host',
	dest="web_host",
	default="",
	help="Host to bind the web interface to. Defaults to '' (all interfaces)"
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'-P', '--port', '--web-port',
	type="int",
	dest="port",
	default=8089,
	help="Port on which to run web host"
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'-f', '--locustfile',
	dest='locustfile',
	default='locustfile',
	help="Python module file to import, e.g. '../other.py'. Default: locustfile"
	)
	# if locust should be run in distributed mode as master
	parser.add_option(
	'--master',
	action='store_true',
	dest='master',
	default=False,
	help="Set locust to run in distributed mode with this process as master"
	)
	# if locust should be run in distributed mode as slave
	parser.add_option(
	'--slave',
	action='store_true',
	dest='slave',
	default=False,
	help="Set locust to run in distributed mode with this process as slave"
	)
	# master host options
	parser.add_option(
	'--master-host',
	action='store',
	type='str',
	dest='master_host',
	default="127.0.0.1",
	help="Host or IP address of locust master for distributed load testing. Only used when running with --slave. Defaults to 127.0.0.1."
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'--master-port',
	action='store',
	type='int',
	dest='master_port',
	default=5557,
	help="The port to connect to that is used by the locust master for distributed load testing. Only used when running with --slave. Defaults to 5557. Note that slaves will also connect to the master node on this port + 1."
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'--master-bind-host',
	action='store',
	type='str',
	dest='master_bind_host',
	default="*",
	help="Interfaces (hostname, ip) that locust master should bind to. Only used when running with --master. Defaults to * (all available interfaces)."
	)
	parser.add_option(
	'--master-bind-port',
	action='store',
	type='int',
	dest='master_bind_port',
	default=5557,
	help="Port that locust master should bind to. Only used when running with --master. Defaults to 5557. Note that Locust will also use this port + 1, so by default the master node will bind to 5557 and 5558."
	)
	# if we should print stats in the console
	parser.add_option(
	'--no-web',
	action='store_true',
	dest='no_web',
	default=False,
	help="Disable the web interface, and instead start running the test immediately. Requires -c and -r to be specified."
	)
	# Number of clients
	parser.add_option(
	'-c', '--clients',
	action='store',
	type='int',
	dest='num_clients',
	default=1,
	help="Number of concurrent clients. Only used together with --no-web"
	)
	# Client hatch rate
	parser.add_option(
	'-r', '--hatch-rate',
	action='store',
	type='float',
	dest='hatch_rate',
	default=1,
	help="The rate per second in which clients are spawned. Only used together with --no-web"
	)
	# Number of requests
	parser.add_option(
	'-n', '--num-request',
	action='store',
	type='int',
	dest='num_requests',
	default=None,
	help="Number of requests to perform. Only used together with --no-web"
	)
	# log level
	parser.add_option(
	'--loglevel', '-L',
	action='store',
	type='str',
	dest='loglevel',
	default='INFO',
	help="Choose between DEBUG/INFO/WARNING/ERROR/CRITICAL. Default is INFO.",
	)
	# log file
	parser.add_option(
	'--logfile',
	action='store',
	type='str',
	dest='logfile',
	default=None,
	help="Path to log file. If not set, log will go to stdout/stderr",
	)
	# if we should print stats in the console
	parser.add_option(
	'--print-stats',
	action='store_true',
	dest='print_stats',
	default=False,
	help="Print stats in the console"
	)
	# only print summary stats
	parser.add_option(
	'--only-summary',
	action='store_true',
	dest='only_summary',
	default=False,
	help='Only print the summary stats'
	)
	# List locust commands found in loaded locust files/source files
	parser.add_option(
	'-l', '--list',
	action='store_true',
	dest='list_commands',
	default=False,
	help="Show list of possible locust classes and exit"
	)
	# Display ratio table of all tasks
	parser.add_option(
	'--show-task-ratio',
	action='store_true',
	dest='show_task_ratio',
	default=False,
	help="print table of the locust classes' task execution ratio"
	)
	# Display ratio table of all tasks in JSON format
	parser.add_option(
	'--show-task-ratio-json',
	action='store_true',
	dest='show_task_ratio_json',
	default=False,
	help="print json data of the locust classes' task execution ratio"
	)
	# Version number (optparse gives you --version but we have to do it
	# ourselves to get -V too. sigh)
	parser.add_option(
	'-V', '--version',
	action='store_true',
	dest='show_version',
	default=False,
	help="show program's version number and exit"
	)

view raw list_of_locust_options.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	from locust import HttpLocust, TaskSet, task
	from pyquery import PyQuery
	import random
	class UserBehaviour(TaskSet):
	urls_from_page = []
	def on_start(self):
	# on starting, we will login and get session then
	# we wil be able to send request to login required page "/my-account"
	self.client.post("/", {"email": "test@testrisk.com", "password": "Passw0rd"})
	request = self.client.get("/my-account")
	# from content of the page, we will take all links and then store them to a variable
	pq = PyQuery(request.content)
	# PyQuery can optain data from the page by jQuery
	link_elements = pq(".link > a")
	for url in link_elements:
	self.urls_from_page.append(url.attrib["href"])
	@task
	def load_page(self):
	# this is a task to run performance testing
	# we will send http request the url taken from "my-account" page
	try:
	url = random.choice(self.urls_from_page)
	self.client.get(url)
	except IndexError:
	print "... something wrong check, pq!"
	pass
	class User(HttpLocust):
	host = "http://www.myhabit.com"
	task_set = UserBehaviour
	# stop the test after 120 seconds
	stop_timeout = 120
	# time for user behaviour
	# we can assume that they wait 0.5 to 6 seconds on a page
	min_wait = 500
	max_wait = 6000

view raw myhabit_locust.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	Percentage of the requests completed within given times
	Name # reqs 50% 66% 75% 80% 90% 95% 98% 99% 100%
	-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	/ 92 720 820 1000 1300 3800 7500 18000 20000 903
	/help/200644950 14 500 510 510 520 530 940 940 940 936
	/my-account 92 310 320 360 360 640 1000 4400 5600 5609
	/orc 14 860 910 920 930 1300 4500 4500 4500 4453
	/yacontactus 20 850 930 980 1100 1300 1300 1300 1300 1349
	--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

view raw result.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

For more information about the Locust click here.