Apache JMeter vs. OpenText Silk Central

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
JMeter
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
JMeter, from Apache, is a load and performance testing tool.N/A
OpenText Silk Central
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Formerly from Micro Focus and earliler from Borland, unified test management with OpenTextâ„¢ Silk Central drives reuse and efficiency. It gives users the visibility to control application readiness.N/A
Pricing
Apache JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Features
Apache JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Load Testing
Comparison of Load Testing features of Product A and Product B
Apache JMeter
7.6
24 Ratings
10% below category average
OpenText Silk Central
-
Ratings
End to end performance management9.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrated performance data8.722 Ratings00 Ratings
Deployment model flexibility6.721 Ratings00 Ratings
Real time monitoring8.721 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated anomaly detection4.918 Ratings00 Ratings
Test Management
Comparison of Test Management features of Product A and Product B
Apache JMeter
-
Ratings
OpenText Silk Central
8.0
1 Ratings
1% below category average
Centralized test management00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Manage test hosts and schedules00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Map tests to user stories00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Test execution reporting00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apache JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

BrowserStack
BrowserStack
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ReadyAPI
ReadyAPI
Score 8.1 out of 10
OpenText ALM/Quality Center
OpenText ALM/Quality Center
Score 7.8 out of 10
Enterprises
ReadyAPI
ReadyAPI
Score 8.1 out of 10
OpenText ALM/Quality Center
OpenText ALM/Quality Center
Score 7.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apache JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(39 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apache JMeterOpenText Silk Central
Likelihood to Recommend
Apache
JMeter is well suited for Java applications where the user can script the scenario once and make changes to accommodate for as many numbers of users for load test execution. The image and selection of any files or exporting files scenario is handled well.
It is less appropriate to test Ajax applications where it is required to script click per use.
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OpenText
We didn't just select Borland Silk Central randomly. In the selection process, we actually evaluated in total 26 available test management tools in the market. We sent surveys to all potential users in the department to collect their wish list of our next management tool, converted them to a criteria list, and used that list to evaluate all 26 tools. We reduced the possible candidate tools to five and organized a small committee to pick the final three. Top management then checked their price tags and selected Borland Silk Central. Based on this evaluation process, I would say Borland Silk Central is suitable to an organization which has no more than 60 testers; needs both manual tests and automated tests; needs on-line support; needs a low learning curve and has a limited budget. My personal view is that this tool reaches the balance points among ease-of-use, budget and support.
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Pros
Apache
  • Easy of use - in generate load like HTTP requests, and processing/analyzing the responses. No coding is necessary at the basic level, just need to understand load testing and the infrastructure being tested.
  • Automatic management of things like cookies to help with session state support - so you don't specifically have to worry about it or handle it
  • Lots of testing/configuration options to suit your needs in making the right load generation (sampling requests), and analyzing the results, including any pre and post processing of the results first. Things like the Beanshell/BSF pre/post processors, response assertion, regular expression extractor, XPath extractor, CSV data set config
  • There is a JMeter cloud service called BlazeMeter that I think would be useful for those that need to scale up high load without provisioning their own systems. I've not personally tried it though, but I recently attended a meetup presentation that highlighted nice useful features that BlazeMeter provides. One should evaluate the service if they are considering JMeter and need to expand beyond existing hardware resources.
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OpenText
  • Borland Silk Central is good for the users to associate test requirements, test cases, execution plans and test reports together. Each asset (test case, requirement, etc...) provides links for the users to jump to other assets in a click, and the users can jump back and forth between two assets.
  • Borland Silk Central is also good in test automation. Although Micro Focus does provide a client tool for test automation, the users don't really need it to automate the tests. In our case, we are using Python to automate the tests and use a batch file to launch tests, and in Borland Silk Central we just call that batch file from server side. The test result is automatically fed back to Silk server.
  • Micro Focus also publishes the schema of the database behind Borland Silk Central, so it is very easy to extend its function beyond its original design. Moreover, because its schema is published, we can easily retrieve and process its data for business intelligence purpose.
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Cons
Apache
  • Jmeter requires many tweaks with respect to its configuration file and thread properties. users need to edit theses files themselves. There could be some interface where we can edit this fields.
  • Jmeter cannot handle more threads and hangs up when we increase the number of threads. This causes lot of inconvenience. In these situations, user can be notified that such change would be lead to slow performance so that user can do as required. The same appears when we try to view huge files on graph listener.
  • Jmeter should optimize the read and write access to output csv since it acts as overhead to the I/O performance. This affects our test results for the application which we are testing.
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OpenText
  • On the other hand, the plugins of Borland Silk Central with third-party tools are programmed poorly. In our case, the plugins for JIRA have a lot of limitations and were almost unusable in our test environment. (They did improve the plugins a little bit later, however.)
  • The tech support people are located in UK, so frequently it is difficult to get a hold of these guys due to different time zones. Also, most of them obviously don't have enough experience and sometimes drove us nuts in emergency situations.
  • The last thing I feel is that Micro Focus possibly doesn't provide enough manpower to maintain Borland Silk Central. There are tons of feature requests for Borland Silk Central pending there. Although they have frequent hot fixes every few months, they don't digest these requests quick enough.
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Likelihood to Renew
Apache
Price, Wiki and user sharing. Having access to the information provided by the developers and other open source providers is key for me. The ability to share information and get answers directly is very important to success in software testing. And the price of this product currently is amazing. Too many companies charge way too much money for products that are far behind in their value and pertinence
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OpenText
No answers on this topic
Usability
Apache
I can jump right into a new test plan and start building from scratch. The natural progression from test plan to thread group and then designing the basic format of the process is very streamlined and smooth. With only slight modifications I can build out a very complex model from a very basic beginning.
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OpenText
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Apache
I have been using JMeter for the last year. By using this tool, you can make sure the system will work under varied loads. It helps us to simulate real time scenarios by creating required virtual users and make sure the application will work under load. Perform load, stress, and stability testing using JMeter.
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OpenText
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Apache
I have used LoadRunner and Silkperformer, and so far Jmeter turns out be the easiest to use of all these. While each of them have their own ROI, Jmeter can be picked by anyone in hours and start testing within a day. While with other tools, we need to get license, install them (takes a while) and setup tests and firewalls, etc.
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OpenText
We had evaluated, for example:
  • IBM Collaborate Suite - it is way too complicated and the learning curve is too high.
  • HP Quality Center - it is OK but a little bit expensive.
  • TestLink, Squash TM and other open source tools: The capabilities of open source tools just can't compare to commercial tools. Although we can modify the source code to improve the tool, we are just test engineers, not developers.
  • Zephyr: Our testers simply didn't like its UI - too weird.
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Return on Investment
Apache
  • Good ROI on improving the performance of the application.
  • Finding issues in the performance.
  • Benchmark the performance results.
  • CON: Need skillset to create and maintain the scripts in Java.
  • Scripts are reusable and it is executed by any user.
  • Need Client and Server setup to execute the scripts.
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OpenText
  • Borland Silk Central provides a centralized test platform for multiple test departments in the company, so now all of the departments know what each of them is doing. In turn, all departments can coordinate with each other to reduce the duplicated test items and increase the overall test efficiency.
  • Also, Borland Silk Central enables the users to publish the test procedure (steps) of each test case so all the users can know how each test case is performed. It is not like what we had before, the test procedures resided in difference place from Excel to Google drive or some other weird locations.
  • Also, because all departments are using Borland Silk Central, all testers of the departments have better communication regarding testing methods. In the past, the department used different test management tools and it was hard for the testers to understand each other's testing methods.
  • Finally, because all departments share BorlandSilk Central, they also share the same set of reports published to Atlassian Confluence, so now they use the same set of reports to evaluate the test progress.
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ScreenShots