The short answer: a load test simulates many visitors at once to see whether the site copes and where it gives way first. It is useful before a campaign or a launch. But a badly run test can bring the site down itself or look like an attack. Do it small, on a copy, and warn us first.
What the site needs
| What |
What to do |
| What it measures |
How many requests per second it handles, how fast it answers under load and what fails first (processor, memory, database). |
| Where to test |
Preferably on a copy of the site, not on the real site with customers in it. |
| How much load |
Start with little and go up in steps. The aim is to find the breaking point, not to jump past it. |
| What it is not |
It is not an attack, but from the server it looks like one: many requests from one place. On shared hosting it can hit limits and be blocked: IP blocked by the firewall. |
| What the cache changes |
A site with a page cache copes with far more than one without. Test with the cache on too: The page cache. |
Getting started
| 1 |
Set the aim: how many visitors at once you expect at the peak, and which pages will be asked for most.
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| 2 |
Warn us before a strong test and use a copy of the site, so an artificial peak is not taken for an attack or catches real customers.
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| 3 |
Use a free load-testing tool and start with few virtual users, going up in stages.
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| 5 |
Fix what gave way first (cache, images, slow queries) and repeat the test.
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Never test someone else’s site or a service that is not yours. And even on your own, a strong test on a shared account can affect other customers on the server and be blocked. If in doubt, ask first and use a small load.
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Want help planning a load test? Open a ticket with the address, the date and the load you plan to use.
Open a support ticket
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Where to see it in your account
The plan's limits for CPU, memory and entry processes are shown in your own account, so read them there instead of from a table. Open Resource Usage in cPanel: it shows CPU, memory, entry processes and I/O, and when the account reached its limit. Open it right after the test. If it records a hit, the test found the plan's ceiling, which is useful to know before the campaign. The Statistics sidebar shows the space and databases in use.
To warn us, open a ticket before the test with the domain, the day and time window, how many virtual users you will reach, whether it is a copy or the real site, and the IP address the test comes from. If the result says the site needs more than the plan gives, you can move up a plan without losing the site, or choose a VPS (full SSH access, from 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM) and size it yourself.
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