Performance Testing: Ensuring Your App Survives Success

What is Performance Testing?

Performance testing verifies that your application meets speed, scalability, and stability requirements under various conditions.

Types of Performance Tests

Load Testing

Test with expected user load to verify normal performance.

Stress Testing

Push beyond normal limits to find breaking points.

Spike Testing

Simulate sudden traffic surges.

Endurance Testing

Run tests over extended periods to find memory leaks and degradation.

Key Metrics to Monitor

Response Time - How fast does the server respond?

Throughput - How many requests per second?

Error Rate - What percentage of requests fail?

Resource Usage - CPU, memory, disk, network

Setting Performance Budgets

Define acceptable thresholds:

Page load under 3 seconds

API responses under 200ms

99.9% uptime

Support 10,000 concurrent users

Tools We Recommend

JMeter - Open source, feature-rich

k6 - Modern, developer-friendly

Gatling - Scala-based, great reports

Locust - Python-based, easy to script

When to Performance Test

Before major releases

After infrastructure changes

Before expected traffic events

Regularly as part of CI/CD

Don't wait for your app to crash under load. Test it before your users do.