Apica LoadTest vs Loadster Synthetic Monitoring

Apica LoadTest creates, runs, and analyzes capacity and performance tests for web and cloud applications. Its workflow covers scripting, setup, building, execution, analysis, and reporting. Users can create or upload HTTP/S load-test scripts, select geographic test clusters, and work through a browser portal without local software downloads. The portal provides managed infrastructure, test execution and scheduling, reporting and analysis, and collaboration storage. Apica says its premium load test network supports tests of up to 2,000,000 concurrent users. Documentation also describes device testing for iPhone, Android, iPad, and Windows, including native mobile applications. Example integrations include AWS Code Pipeline, TeamCity, Jenkins, and Azure DevOps. LoadTest integrates with ZebraTester for exchanging scripts and results; ZebraTester can also run standalone on customer infrastructure. Apica offers full-service projects in which its experts design, script, and execute tests and work with customers on performance analysis and improvement. A blog page invites users to start a 30-day full-featured trial. The Self Service Portal is subscription-based by the month, but no price is listed.

Loadster Synthetic Monitoring runs scheduled scripted checks against websites, web apps, and APIs from outside a user’s infrastructure. A monitor can check one page or endpoint, or follow a multi-step journey such as logging in, navigating pages, and submitting a form. Scripts can use Browser Bots, Protocol Bots, or Playwright Test in JavaScript or TypeScript. Check schedules range from every minute to every day.

The product page lists eight dedicated monitoring locations across five continents, and one monitor can use several locations. Browser Bot and Playwright checks automatically collect TTFB, FCP, LCP, and CLS timing metrics. Monitoring cycles retain logs and detailed traces; browser checks include screenshots, while Protocol Bot checks capture request and response details. Alerts can go through email, SMS, phone calls, webhooks, Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, and VictorOps. By default, one failed cycle opens an incident and one passing cycle resolves it, though the failure threshold can be raised. Hosted status pages can share selected status and uptime history privately or publicly, with custom domains when the customer controls DNS. Monitors can also run from a self-hosted Loadster Engine.