Load Tester™
Affordable enterprise-quality load testing tool
Hardware Requirements
A common question about Load Tester™ is "what type of hardware do I need to test my website?". The short answer is that even with old hardware, Load Tester™ can generate a massive amount of load. An machine 4-5 years old can simulate up to 500 VUs. Modern machines can simulate in the 3,000-5,000VU range, easily saturating a 100Mb network, and often saturating a 1Gb network. CPU and disk space aren't important, but at least 4G of RAM is recommended, and the more the better.
If you're going to be generating loads over 1,000 concurrent users, or running tests for a long period of time we strongly recommend you use a 64-bit operating system paired with Load Tester's 64-bit installer.
Load Balanced Load Generation
One reason that the quality of the hardware isn't so important is Load Tester™'s dynamic, load balanced load generation. During a load testing it monitors the computer generating the load to maintain virtual user quality. In a single computer setup, it will refuse to add users if it detects that would degrade the quality of the simulated users. In a multiple load engine configuration, once a load generating computer gets close to its limit, then future virtual users will be added to other more lightly loaded computers.