Quick Guide: Performance Testing on Mobile Applications [2021 Updated]

With the expansion of the mobile application market, the need for testing practices has significantly outgrown. Performance testing is one of such essential testing practices for mobile applications, done with the purpose to evaluate the performance of a mobile application. It is usually performed to measure Responsiveness, Speed, Scalability, Stability with different load conditions.  

Moreover, there are various available performance testing tools for mobile applications that one can check to test the application and ensure that the app will work as expected with different load conditions. Besides, Improving Android Performance or performing tests of a mobile app is essential along with performance testing tools. Otherwise, your system will run very slow, and your users can face various usability problems.   

What Are the End-Users Expectations with Respect to Mobile App Performance?  

 Every mobile app user expects that the mobile app will be loaded quickly when they open the application on their smartphones. Similarly, it will help them get a quick response. Since slow response times deeply hurt them, mainly when they have to shop something online and fulfill their needs.  

However, in the event of poor mobile app performance, they may decide to switch to the nearest competitor and don’t get back to those platforms where they got a bad user experience. Thus, always conduct the mobile app performance testing to ensure that when user clicks on the app icon, it will load quickly for the users and help them stay on the app for longer.   

Additionally, Improving the User Interface (UX) of the app is another concern that you must focus on for your users because the look and the feel of the app grab the user’s attention. Moreover, users will feel happy when you provide them interactive User Interface with the app’s load time.  

Checklist for Mobile App Performance Testing Before Releasing the App to the Market   

Criss-Cross Server/API Performance   

During Performance Testing of Mobile Apps, you must check the application's data flow and get a detailed knowledge of its underlying application programming interfaces (APIs) to know about any downtimes and improve the server’s efficiency.   

Verify App Performance Under Various Network Conditions   

To avoid packet loss or any mid-way latency, mobile apps should be tested across network bandwidths for 3G, 4G, and other network situations such as dropouts, firewalls, network congestion, and so on. Similarly, app performance testing should be performed when the user changes from one network to another network—for example, 3G to 4G and public network to secure WiFi or LAN.   

Perform Device Testing to Establish a Baseline for Performance Variations 

Performance testing of mobile should be done based on their loading time, memory consumption, and battery duration. And, some other factors should be checked during device testing. Plus, it would help if you keep an eye on hardware and software differences to get the test done in the right way.   

Different Types of Mobile Application Performance Testing:  

1) Load Testing on Mobile App:  

Load testing in performance testing services is meant to test the system constantly and steadily by increasing the load on the system till the time it reaches the threshold limit.  

2) Stress Testing on Mobile App:  

Stress testing is a type of mobile app performance testing approach focused on determining an application's robustness, availability, and reliability under extreme conditions. The main purpose of this process is to make sure that the system fails and recovers gracefully.  

3) Volume Testing on Mobile App:  

 Volume testing is also a type of performance testing that helps test software applications with a large amount of data and their performance.  

Also Read: Types of Performance Testing in Detail  

Mobile Application Performance Testing Workflow   

 The basic workflow to test the performance of mobile applications consists of:  

Server Conditions: It consists of load on server, workload.  

Network Conditions: It consists of network load, network signal, network type.  

Device Conditions: It contains platform type, device type, and application type.  

When data traffic flow in mobile applications, it degrades the system's overall performance, and this happens due to coding errors or hardware issues cause a decrease throughout under specific loads.  

So based on the above workflow, the tester should monitor the below-mentioned things to measure the accurate performance of an application, or you can understand the following are the mobile app performance benchmarks that you can look forward to before conducting Android Performance Testing or testing other mobiles:  

1. Load, CPU usage, Packets sent/received under server part  

2. Throughput, Hits per second, Transaction per second  

3. Response time under device condition  

4. Packet loss, average delay under n/w conditions  

5. Network Usage  

6. Memory usage, Memory leakage  

For performance testing, several mobile application-based load testing tools are available in the market that you can explore to analyze the parameters mentioned above to measure the accurate performance of applications.  

How Should You Perform Performance testing for a Mobile Application?  

 When setting up a test environment for testing the mobile app performance, you need to  

• Have a better understanding of the mobile app which is being tested.  

• Identify all the different OS on which your app will be running.  

• Build a robust test setup  

• Build simulators  

• Create a prototype of the actual setup  

• Carefully choose the appropriate tool for performance testing.  

• Consider Mobile App Performance Testing Checklist to track the progress of your testing procedure  

• Know the minimum RAM requirement for the mobile app  

• Verify response time and speed of the mobile app under diverse networks and circumstances.  

• Test to ensure realistic user experience under different circumstances and networks.  

• Make sure that the app doesn’t crash anymore.  

• Monitor the uptime constantly and API Usage.  

Top 5 Mobile Performance Testing Tools in 2021  

1. Blaze Meter:  

Blaze Meter is a commercial and self-service performance testing tool that any software testing company uses for providing enterprise performance testing and capacity planning. This tool can be used to find and fix performance bottlenecks in minutes.  

Blaze Meter's load testing platform has built-in integrations that can be extended with a series of custom plug-ins. Blaze Meter currently provides a free plug-in for mobile app performance testing using J-Meter for load testing.  

2. Apache JMeter:  

JMeter is a performance testing tool. It is an open-source and pure Java tool designed for the performance measurement of web and mobile applications. It provides graphs and visualization techniques to analyze the results as well.  

JMeter is software that can perform load tests, performance-oriented business (functional) tests, regression tests on different protocols or technologies being a versatile tool.  

 It provides handy features to prepare and run our mobile-specific performance test scripts.  

3. Apptim   

4. Akamai CloudTest  

Akamai CloudTest is another mobile performance testing tool for user-based testing and helps you get the mobile app performance report with ease. Various business uses this tool to assess the load of their apps that are using all across the world. Moreover, with this tool, one can easy to get customizable dashboards and simulate major events with precision control.   

5. Eggplant   

When it comes to mobile app performance testing tools, Eggplant comes to many users’ minds. This testing application is suitable for all types of businesses, so as a QA automation expert, you can use Eggplant to check the app’s compatibility. Besides, it includes machine learning features, AI for websites, and DevOps to conduct load testing efficiently.   

Benefits With Performance Tested Mobile Apps 

• Helps Enhance the user experience with a flawless UX design.  

• It helps to improve your brand’s trust with stable apps.  

• Suitable for user experience optimization.  

• Ensures app performs seamlessly across OS, devices, and networks.  

• Assures quicker ROI and faster time to market.  

• Ensures to deliver scalable apps to the customers.  

• Improves your loyalty and brand reputation.  

• It helps improve app downloads and lets you achieve higher ratings from end-users  

All in all, getting your mobile app tested for the mandatory performance testing benchmarks related to load, functionality, and purpose could help you drive the sales and end-user experience you seek. However, the only thing that could help you go on the other side of fence is the right approach towards testing teams, tools, and of course, an in-depth knowledge of the tool that you need to take to your audience.  

Choose wisely! Good Luck! 

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