Web load testing with PRTG
Keep your website user-ready through continuous load testing
- Monitor key website metrics and run load and stress tests from one place
- Prevent bottlenecks, latency, and potential disruption
- Be prepared for traffic spikes and optimize performance
Our users give top ratings for monitoring with Paessler PRTG
PRTG website load tester: What you’ll find on this page
Are you acing the 5-second test?
5 seconds.
Less than it takes to reheat your coffee in the break room microwave, or for the elevator door to close.
And yet, a whopping 90% of website visitors will be up in arms if your website takes longer than this to load.
But it's not just your website loading time that's make or break.
Excessive background API calls, inefficient database queries, no auto-scalability, unused CSS, poorly-written javascript, and other issues can also impact performance.
And, because these issues are often not noticeable at normal loads, they might go undetected until an unexpected spike in traffic brings everything crashing down.
PRTG's website load tester helps you get in front of these issues by enabling you to check whether web pages will perform as expected under normal conditions, and at which point you'll start running into issues.
Better still, you can keep a close eye on key metrics round the clock, and built-in automations will alert you in case of potentially problematic anomalies so you can nip them in the bud.
PRTG makes website load testing easy
Custom alerts and data visualizations make it easy to monitor, identify, and prevent bottlenecks, server overload, latency, connectivity and capacity problems, and other website performance issues.
Faster websites, satisfied customers, happier higher-ups: Why Paessler
Built-in automations
Don't wait for your website to go down before you fix it. Pick your preferred performance thresholds and PRTG will email, text, or send an in-app notification on your mobile app if it detects a potential issue. Which means you'll have fewer annoyed colleagues (and customers) and more sales.
Location independence
Make sure your website is available wherever you have customers, at all times. PRTG supports worldwide testing and monitoring, so you can check that it's live in America, Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania… and yes, in Antarctica too.
Easy to scale
Testing and monitoring you won't outgrow. PRTG supports unlimited local, remote, and virtual devices, enabling you to expand or reduce your monitoring capabilities as your needs change. Oh, and we won't lock you in or try to upsell you stuff you don't need.
What website load testing looks like in PRTG
Diagnose network issues by continuously monitoring applications, databases, CPUs, firewalls, DNS, web servers, cloud services, and other critical website components. Show traffic, throughput, memory, load time, response times and other key stats in real time and visualize data in graphic maps & dashboards to identify problems more easily. Gain the visibility you need to troubleshoot bottlenecks, server overload, latency, connectivity and capacity problems, and other website performance issues.
Device tree view of the complete monitoring setup
Custom Business Process sensor in PRTG
Custom PRTG dashboard for keeping an eye on the entire IT infrastructure
Start testing website load with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
“All-around winning “The real beauty of PRTG is the endless possibilities it offers” “PRTG Network MonitorIT experts agree: Paessler PRTG is a great solution for IT infrastructure monitoring
network monitor”
is very hard to beat”
Dressed to the five-nines: How PRTG maximises web performance and availabilityon?
Think you can't hit 99.999% availability?
Think again. PRTG's all-in-one testing and performance monitoring solution simplifies optimization and maintains speed, stability, and reliability by default.
PRTG can carry out both active website load tests and passive website performance monitoring. This means you can:
- Check your website will perform as expected under certain circumstances (and what would happen in case of extremes)
- Continuously track availability, web app status, and other key metrics that might impact website performance so you can nip any issues in the bud.
With 250 + preconfigured sensors, plus the ability to create your own, you can gather the key metrics of every hardware or software component imaginable:
- Applications, including AWS. You can even read how many end-users are visiting your website, as well as other web application internal values using the HTTP Content sensor.
- Availability: PRTG's capabilities include HTTP and HTTP advanced sensors that can monitor how long it takes to load an individual page and download speed, an HTTP Full Web Page sensor that monitors how long it takes for an entire website to load, and Cloud HTTP v2 and Cloud Ping v2 sensors that check availability on every continent
- Bandwidth and CPU load
- Databases, including Oracle SQL, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
User journeys: the HTTP Transaction sensor checks for errors on your login screen, shopping cart, confirmation page, and other critical end-user touchpoints
Your website's key stats at a glance – even on the go
Set up PRTG in minutes and use it on almost any mobile device.
Easily find the source of the problem with our PRTG website load-testing solution
Real-time alerts and custom notifications make it easy to solve issues such as bottlenecks, server overload, latency, connectivity and capacity problems, and other website performance issues.
PRTG is compatible with all major vendors, products, and systems
Create innovative solutions with Paessler’s partners
Partnering with innovative vendors, Paessler unleashes synergies to create
new and additional benefits for joined customers.
With ScriptRunner, Paessler integrates a powerful event automation platform into PRTG Network Monitor.
ScriptRunner
“Excellent tool for detailed monitoring. Alarms and notifications work greatly. Equipment addition is straight forward and server initial setup is very easy. ...feel safe to purchase it if you intend to monitor a large networking landscape.”
Infrastructure and Operations Engineer in the Communications Industry, firm size 10B - 30B USD
PRTG makes website load testing easy
Custom alerts and data visualizations make it easy to monitor, identify, and prevent bottlenecks, server overload, latency, connectivity and capacity problems, and other website performance issues.
PRTG website load tester: FAQ
What is PRTG website load tester
PRTG is a proprietary software tool that tracks the health and performance of every component that could impact your website's stability and performance. Available for Windows-based on-premises servers or as a cloud-hosted solution, it's capable of monitoring unlimited local, remote, and virtual network devices, bringing critical system data together in one simple, intuitive interface you can access from anywhere: at the office, at home, or on the go.
What does PRTG website load tester do?
PRTG is a standalone tool that can carry out two types of performance testing: load testing and stress testing. Load testing allows you to check that your website can handle expected user loads, while stress testing finds your website's breaking point: the test results show you the point at which your website's performance will start to suffer.
Read the following case studies to get a better idea of PRTG's capabilities:
- Comparing a download server's performance on 100 megabit and gigabit network cards
- Comparing a static HTML file and CGI script's request times
- Comparing PHP script performance on Windows and Linux
- Comparing the performance of two web servers running on the same hardware
- Defining a web server's limits
- Measuring a download server's maximum throughput
- Stress-testing a download server
- Stress-testing a PHP script
- Stress-testing an IIS6 server
- Web server burn-in test
How do I set up PRTG website load tester?
Download the Webserver Stress Tool. Pick your parameters. Run the test. It's really that easy.
The tool will simulate traffic to test web performance and user experience. In other words, virtual users will simultaneously send HTTP requests to a webpage or web server, allowing you to work out whether it's as fast and stable as you’d expect it, and at which point its performance begins to drop.
You can run test scenarios with the following maximum thresholds:
- Bandwidth: approx. 500 mbps
- Pageviews: 1,000,000 per hour
- Concurrent users: 10,000
Just be aware that our Webserver stress and load testing tool can't stress-test SSL-encrypted pages.
What is a sensor in PRTG?
In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive.
On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.
PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
Paessler conducted trials in over 600 IT departments worldwide to tune its network monitoring software closer to the needs of sysadmins. We asked: would you recommend PRTG?
Over 95% of our customers say yes!
The result of the survey: over 95% of the participants would recommend PRTG – or already have.
Paessler PRTG is used by companies of all sizes. Sysadmins love PRTG because it makes their job a whole lot easier. Bandwidth, servers, virtual environments, websites, VoIP services – PRTG keeps an eye on your entire network. Everyone has different monitoring needs. That’s why we let you try PRTG for free.Still not convinced?
More than 500,000
sysadmins love PRTG
Monitor your entire IT infrastructure
Try Paessler PRTG
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Start testing website load with PRTG and see how it can make your network more reliable and your job easier.
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PRTG |
Network Monitoring Software - Version 25.1.104.1946 (March 18th, 2025) |
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Hosting |
Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available |
Languages |
English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese |
Pricing |
Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Unified Monitoring |
Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more |
Supported Vendors & Applications |
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