What is NeoLoad

Tricentis NeoLoad is a load and performance testing platform. It generates large volumes of simulated traffic against your application and measures how the application responds. You use it to answer two questions: can your system support the expected number of users, and does it respond fast enough?

This documentation covers Tricentis NeoLoad, the desktop application where you record user interactions, design test scripts, configure scenarios, and run performance tests. For centralized test execution at scale, NeoLoad integrates with NeoLoad Web.

Why load and performance test

Load testing and performance testing answer different questions about your application:

  • Load testing answers: can the system support the expected volume of users and transactions? What's the maximum capacity before it breaks?

  • Performance testing answers: does the system respond fast enough? Do response times meet your service level agreements?

Without these tests, you discover problems in production. Here's what that looks like:

  • Your application slows to a crawl during peak hours, and users leave.

  • A go-live fails because no one tested with realistic load.

  • Batch jobs run during business hours and choke the application for online users.

  • A sudden spike in traffic takes the site down entirely.

  • A server fails and the application can't recover.

NeoLoad lets you reproduce these situations in a controlled environment. You simulate the load, watch what happens, and fix the weak points before they reach production.

What NeoLoad does

NeoLoad covers the full load and performance testing cycle:

  • Record user interactions: Capture what real users do in your application and turn it into a reusable test script.

  • Design load tests: Define how many virtual users to simulate, what they do, and for how long.

  • Run tests at scale: Run tests from cloud infrastructure, your own on-premise servers, or both. Monitor response times, throughput, and error rates in real time.

  • Analyze results: Review results through dashboards with graphs and statistics. Compare results across test runs to track trends over time.

  • Automate: Connect with your CI/CD pipeline to run tests on every build. Define pass/fail criteria based on performance thresholds.

NeoLoad and NeoLoad Web

NeoLoad and NeoLoad Web work together:

  • NeoLoad is the desktop application. You use it to record user interactions, design test scripts, configure scenarios, and run tests locally or through connected infrastructure.

  • NeoLoad Web is the centralized platform. You use it to run tests at scale, allocate infrastructure including controllers and load generators, schedule test runs, store results, and share them with your team.

This documentation covers the NeoLoad desktop application. For the centralized web platform, see the NeoLoad Web documentation.

Who uses NeoLoad

NeoLoad serves different roles in your organization:

  • Performance testers: Create and run load tests, analyze results, and find performance issues.

  • Developers: Validate that code changes don't degrade performance.

  • DevOps engineers: Automate performance tests in CI/CD pipelines.

  • Test managers: Track test progress and report on performance metrics.

  • System administrators: Provision testing infrastructure, configure environments, and manage licenses.

What's next

Now that you know what NeoLoad is, here's where to go: