[thelist] Load testing websites / web apps

[Paul Bennett]

Sorry Matt,

You can tell I'm new to this topic...

To clarify the site is around 3,500 static pages (twice as many PDF docs) with monthly uniques in the vicinity of 200K.
The site is getting more and more dynamic components - some built by external companies, some by our in-house tech team.

We've had some load issues with applications delivered to us and want to have some software and processes to provide benchmarking so we have solid data to back up claims that some applications are poorly thought out and just plain slow.

Mercury LoadRunner looks great, but may be overkill for us. Given that I have to 'contact a supplier' for a price, I'm guessing that the cost will make me choke on my lunch and that purchasing the product will get me 2 years of annoying phone calls from the suppliers 'Enterprise Integration' team wanting to find consulting business in my organisation?

I'm experimenting with some products but don't really have enough idea yet to know what's good or bad...

Paul