Curl: Fast-track Your Web App Performance Testing!

With its simplicity and flexibility, Curl is an invaluable tool for quickly and efficiently performance testing your web app. By leveraging its features, you can gain insights into your application's performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimize for better user experiences.

Install Curl on Mac

brew install curl bc

Install Curl on Linux

sudo apt-get install curl bc

Measure average response time of a single URL

#!/bin/bash

function usage() {
    echo "Usage:  $0 script count"
    echo "Example: $0 http://example.com 10"
}

if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
    usage
    exit
fi

url=$1
count=$2

let i=$count-1
tot=0
while [ $i -ge 0 ]; do
    res=$(curl -w "$i: %{time_total} %{http_code} %{size_download} %{url_effective}\n" -o "/dev/null" -s "${url}")
    echo $res
    val=$(echo $res | cut -f2 -d' ')
    tot=$(echo "scale=3;${tot}+${val}" | bc)
    let i=i-1
    sleep 0.001
done

avg=$(echo "scale=3; ${tot}/${count}" | bc)
echo "   ........................."
echo "   AVG: $tot/$count = $avg"

Running the script: ./measure_avg_resp_time.sh "http://mysite.com/api/v1/get_something" 10

This command will run the above script 10 times to figure out an average response time.

Measure requests per second of a single URL

#!/bin/bash

function usage() {
        echo "Usage: $0 url seconds"
        echo "Example: $0 http://myservice.com/api/v1/something 10"
}

if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
        usage
        exit
fi

URL=$1
SECONDS=$2

reqs=0
max_reqs=0
res_time_total=0
end=$((SECONDS + $(date +%s)))

while [ $(date +%s) -lt $end ]; do
    response=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}:%{time_total}" $URL)
    IFS=":" read -r -a arr <<< "$response"
    if [ "${arr[0]}" -ne 200 ]; then
        echo "Request failed with response code ${arr[0]}"
        exit 1
    fi
    res_time_total=$(echo "$res_time_total + ${arr[1]}" | bc -l)
    reqs=$((reqs+1))
    if [ $reqs -gt $max_reqs ]; then
        max_reqs=$reqs
    fi
    if [ $(($(date +%s) % SECONDS)) -eq 0 ]; then
        reqs=0
    fi
    if [ $((reqs % 10)) -eq 0 ]; then
        avg_res_time=$(echo "$res_time_total / 10" | bc -l)
        echo "Average response time for last 10 requests: $avg_res_time seconds"
        res_time_total=0
    fi
done

echo "Max requests per second: $max_reqs"

Run the above script: ./max_req_sec.sh "http://myservice.com/api/v1/something" 10