I am working on a proposal for my company into purchasing some load testing software. I have to give 2 choices. One of my choices I am proposing is HP(Mecurary) Loadrunner. Is there another program out there that is comparible with Loadrunner? We are looking at using the software to test the performance of the following.
C# .NET Template
Microsoft® .NET 2.0, 3.0
Microsoft® SQL Server Informix
Web (HTTP/HTML)
Web Services
Web and Multimedia
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
Domain Name System (DNS)
Microsoft® Exchange (MAPI)
OpenSourceTesting.com has a list of OSS performance tools.
The Software Testing FAQ also has a list of commercial and OSS performance testing tools.
Since it looks like you're on a Windows platform, you can also use the following tools:
There are a lot of options out there, but it seems like you have a good handle on your requirements. I recommend doing a trade study of your top choices, using weighted criteria and a rank of how each product scores (sort of like a custom "Consumer Reports" style comparison). This will help you reduce any preconceived notions towards or against a product, and also gives your management a sound empirical reason as to why you choose the tool you did. This can go a long way in justifying the cost for a big ticket item.
Also, for the commercial tools, the vendors will often come on site and set up a demo system to test your code. We did this a few years back with Mercury, Rational and NuMega. It really helped cut through the presentation B.S. and see exactly how the products could be used with our apps.