15 tools to help developers improve web speeds

Response times, availability, and stability are vital factors to the bear in mind when creating and maintaining a Web Applicat Ion. If you ' re concerned about your Web pages ' speed or want to make sure your ' re in tip-top shape before starting or launching A project, here's a few useful, free tools to help you create and sustain high-performance Web applications.

I ' ve tried to include a wide variety's tools that are easy to use, and have tried to keep them as OS and TECHNOLOGY-INDEP Endent as possible so, everyone can find a tool or two.

1. YSlow for Firebug

YSlow grades A website ' s performance based on the best practices to high performance Web sites on the Yahoo! Developer Ne Twork. Each of the given a letter grade (A through F) stating how to rank on certain aspects of front-end performance. It ' s a simple tool for finding things can work on such as reducing the number of HTTP request a Web page makes, and co mpressing external JavaScript and CSS files. A worthwhile read is the Ajax performance analysis post on IBM developerWorks that outlines practical ways of using YSlow In your Web applications.

2. Firebug

Firebug is a essential browser-based Web development tool for debugging, testing, and analyzing Web pages. It has a powerful set of utilities to help for you understand and dissect what ' s going on. One of the many notable features is the Net (Network) tab where can inspect HTML, CSS, XHR, JS components.

3. Fiddler 2

Fiddler 2 is a browser-based HTTP debugging tool This helps you analyze incoming and outgoing traffic. It ' s highly customizable and has countless of reporting and debugging features. Be sure to read the "Fiddler Powertoy-part 2:http Performance" guide on the MSDN which discusses functional of Fid Dler including to improve "first-visit" performance (i.e. unprimed cache), analyzing HTTP response headers, creating C Ustom flags for potential performance problems and more.

4. Cuzillion

Cuzillion is a cool tool to help you are here how page components interact with each other. The goal are to help you quickly rapidly check, test, and modify Web pages before you finalize the structure. It can give you clues on potential trouble-spots or points of improvements. Cuzillion is created by Steve Saunders, the Ex-chief performance in Yahoo!, a leading engineer for the development of Yah Oo ' s performance best practices, and creator of YSlow.

5. mon.itor.us

Monitor.us is a free web-based service that grants your a suite of tools for monitoring performance, availability, and Traf FIC statistics. You can establish your website's response time and set up alerts for when a service becomes unavailable. can also set-up weekly, automated benchmarks to-if changes you ' ve made impact speed and performance either Ely or negatively.

6. IBM Page Detailer

The IBM Page Detailer is a straightforward tool for letting you visualize Web components as they ' re being downloaded. It latches onto your browser, so all your have to do are navigate to the desired site with the IBM Page Detailer open. Clicking on a Web page component opens a Windows with the relevant details associated with it. Whenever an event occurs (such as a script being executed), the tool opens a Windows with information about the processes.

7. Httperf

Httperf is a open-source tool for measuring HTTP server performance on Linux. It ' A effective tool for benchmarking and creating workload simulations to-if you can handle high-level traffic and Still maintain stability. can also use it to figure out the maximum capacity of your server, gradually increasing the number of requests your MAK E to test its threshold.

8. Pylot

Pylot is a open-source performance and scalability testing tool. It uses HTTP load tests so can, benchmark, analyze and tweak performance. Pylot requires that you have Python installed on the server-but you don ' t need to know the language, your use XML to Crea Te your testing scenarios.

9. Pushtotest Testmaker

Pushtotest Testmaker is a free, Open-source platform for testing scalability and performance of applications. It has a intuitive graphical user interface with visual reporting and analytical tools. It has a Resource Monitor feature to help with the CPU, memory, and network utilization during. The reporting features let you generate graphs or export data to a spreadsheet application for record-keeping or further Statistics analysis.

Wbox HTTP Testing Tool

Wbox is a simple, free HTTP testing software released under the GPL (V2). It supports Linux, Windows, and MacOS X systems. It works by making sequential requests in desired intervals for stress-testing. It has a HTTP compression command so can analyze data about your server ' s file compression. If you ' ve just set up a virtual domain, Wbox HTTP testing tool also and a command for your to test if comes ' I n Order before deployment.

Webload.

Webload is a open-source, professional grade Stress/load Suite for Web testing. Webload allows testers to perform scripts for load testing using JavaScript. It can gather live data for monitoring, recording, and analysis purposes, using the Client-side data to analyze performance. It ' s not just a performance tool–it comes with authoring and debugging features in.

Dbmonster

Dbmonster is a open-source application to help your tune database structures and table indexes, as as a conduct tests T o Determine performance under high database load. It ' ll help you to the your database/s would scale by using automated generation of test data. It supports many databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MSSQL and (probably) any database that supports the JDBC DRI Ver.

Octagate Sitetimer

The Octagate Sitetimer is a simple utility for determining the time it takes to download everything on a Web page. It gives you a visualization of the duration of the download process (initial request, connection, start of download, and end of download).

Web Page Analyzer

The Web page Analyzer is a extremely simple, web-based test to help your gain information on Web page performance. It gives you data about the total number of HTTP requests, total page weight, your objects ' sizes, and more. It tries to estimate the download time of your Web page in different Internet connections and it also enumerates each page Object for you. At the end, it provides to the Web page Tested–use your own judgment in Interpre Ting the information.

Site-perf.com

Site-perf.com is a free web-based service This gives you information about your site ' s loading speed. With site-perf.com ' s tool, your get real-time capturing of data. It can help your spot bottlenecks, find page errors, gather server data, and More-all without have to install a applic ation or register for this account.