Measuring Page Load Time: Useful Tools

Okay, no more theory, it’s time to get to practice. You already know where the beginning and the end can be, so now we will tell you what tools you can use to measure page load time.
There are more than enough tools, but if you try at least five of them, you will understand the following things:

• The results are not always stable. The main problem is that you probably will never even discover why it’s happening;
• Usually, load testing tools measure the page load time in different way. Sorry, but there is no unique formula;
• Websites with authentication are extremely difficult to measure. Let us know if you figure out how to deal with this problem, okay?
• The reports you get in the end usually miss details.

Despite the challenges of the way, a lot of tools for an effective website load test are already available. No worries, you don’t need to try every existing tool in order to find the most suitable one. We have already done this for you. Here are the most useful and practical ways for page load tests:

Selenium.

The main purpose of this tool is to measure how much time it will take for a picture, text or any other element to become available to a user. The problem is that for static pages the results are usually more or less stable, while dynamic pages may have significantly different results.

WebPageTest.

This tool offers a lot of ways to determine page load time and provides detailed reports. WebPageTest is constantly developing, and, probably, it is one of the most convenient tools.

DIY.

Exactly, do it yourself. It will be complicated, but we believe that you can do it. The main challenge is to define which point you consider the final one. However, don’t hope to create something absolutely universal – there is a high probability of your creation to work only with your products. Well, that’s still better than nothing, isn’t it?