SOASTA is a leading name within the testing industry, offering a great range of testing solutions. Not only do they have load testing solutions, they also offer real user monitoring services, continuous mobile app testing, expert support, and much more. SOASTA offers feature-rich tools and solutions that are ideal for large businesses, however the biggest downside with SOASTA is cost: their plans are expensive. So what if there was a way that you could access what SOASTA has to offer, but also save money? Testers have access to a range of different tools/solutions, and it can be beneficial at times to use a combination of solutions. Here we will take a look at both RedLine13 and SOASTA, go over how we compare to SOASTA, and discuss how you can use both RedLine13 and SOASTA to get the most out of load testing. With the combination of both of these services, you’ll get the best of both worlds: affordable load testing combined with corporate-grade, feature-rich solutions.
Overview of The Subscription Plans
The Free Plans
| Features | SOASTA | RedLine13 |
| Maximum Number of Virtual Users | 100 | Unlimited |
| Number of Tests | Unlimited? | Unlimited |
| Test Duration | ? | 1 Day |
| Team Members | 1 | 1 |
| Load Generators | 1 | Unlimited |
| Data Retention | ? | 30 Days |
| Reporting Features | ✓ | ✓ |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✓ | |
| 3rd Party Monitor Support | ✓ | |
| Real Time Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Continuous Integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cloud-based/cloud options | ✓ | |
| Dynamic, customizable dashboards | ✓ | |
| Cost | Free | Free |
When it comes to the free subscriptions, SOASTA and RedLine13 are somewhat similar. With SOASTA, you can simulate 100 virtual users, run an unlimited amount of tests, receive their infrastructure monitoring features, the ability to customize dashboards, and 3rd party monitoring support. However SOASTA does not specify if they offer free data retention, how long the tests can run for, and they only offer one load generator. With RedLine13, you can simulate an unlimited amount of users, run an unlimited amount of tests that last up to 24 hours, and access an unlimited amount of load generators (through your AWS account). Additionally RedLine13 offers 30 days of data retention and is cloud based.
The Professional Plans
| Features | SOASTA | RedLine13 |
| Maximum Number of Virtual Users | tens to millions | Unlimited |
| Number of Tests | 1 | Unlimited |
| Test Duration | 2 hours | Unlimited |
| Team Members | 1 | 1 |
| Load Generators | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Data Retention | ? | 2 years |
| Test Replay | ✓ | |
| Reporting Features | ✓ | ✓ |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✓ | |
| 3rd Party Monitor Support | ✓ | |
| Test Creation | SOASTA | User |
| Direct Database Testing | ✓ | |
| Real Time Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real User Monitoring | ✓ | |
| Continuous Integration | ✓ | |
| Cloud-based/cloud options | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dynamic, customizable dashboards | ✓ | |
| Cost | $2,500 per test | $120/Month, $1,000/year |
SOASTA does not offer a basic subscription plan, meaning that you will have to directly move from their free service to their on-demand service. With SOASTA’s on-demand service, their engineers will build/construct load tests for you in addition to running them. They offer various reporting features, monitoring tools, real time analytics, customizable dashboards, the ability to simulate millions of virtual users, direct database testing, access to their mPulse real user monitoring service, and more. With SOASTA, they more-or-less do the work for you, but this comes at a price: $2,500 per test. Additionally SOASTA still makes no mention of data retention, tests can only last 2 hours in total, and you do not have continuous integration. With RedLine13’s professional plan, you have the ability to simulate an unlimited amount of users, tests can last for an unlimited amount of time, and there’s 2 years of data retention. Also since you can run more than one test, with RedLine13 you are able to clone and replay tests rather than paying another $2.5K per test. Like SOASTA, RedLine13 also offers real time analytics, reporting features, and is cloud-based.
The Enterprise Plans
| Features | SOASTA | RedLine13 |
| Maximum Number of Virtual Users | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Number of Tests | Unlimited? | Unlimited |
| Test Duration | ? | Unlimited |
| Team Members | Unlimited | 5 |
| Load Generators | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Data Retention | ? | 2 years |
| Reporting Features | ✓ | ✓ |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✓ | |
| 3rd Party Monitor Support | ✓ | |
| Direct Database Testing | ✓ | |
| Real Time Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real User Monitoring | ✓ | |
| Continuous Integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Simultaneous Execution | ✓ | |
| Cloud-based/cloud options | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dynamic, customizable dashboards | ✓ | |
| Support | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cost | ??? | $2,500/year |
In terms of enterprise solutions, both SOASTA and RedLine13 further expand their features. With SOASTA, you essentially are granted access to all of their features. Their enterprise plan offers an unlimited amount of users, unlimited load generators, an unlimited amount of team members, simultaneous execution, cloud-based options/support, real user monitoring, and much more. On SOASTA’s pricing and feature page they make no mention about the test duration or the number of tests that you can run. Given the fact that this is an annual enterprise plan, it’s probably safe to assume that you can run an unlimited amount of tests.
With SOASTA’s enterprise subscription, you will be able to more than adequately meet your testing needs. However SOASTA makes absolutely no mention of how much this plan costs. Given the fact that the cheaper option is $2,500 per individual test, one can only speculate just how much a SOASTA enterprise plan costs. Conversely, RedLine13’s enterprise plan is compelling as well. For the cost of one SOASTA on-demand test, you will have a years worth of unlimited testing and access to all of RedLine13’s features. You receive 2 years of data retention, up to 5 team members, unlimited load generators, customer support, and more.
Using RedLine13 and SOASTA
Testing with RedLine13 or SOASTA comes with pros and cons, but together you can get the best of both worlds. Ultimately it boils down to the balance between cost and features. SOASTA offers a host of enterprise features, exceptional support, detailed reports, and much more. However both their free and professional testing plans come with some downsides. You can endlessly run load tests with their free subscription, yet these tests are almost impossible to scale given the limitations on virtual users, test duration, and load generators. If that does not meet your needs, you’ll have to opt for their $2,500 per test on-demand service, which is exceptionally expensive for smaller businesses. Even then, there are still some limitations in terms of testing parameters.
RedLine13 is all about “almost” free load testing, and that certainly becomes apparent when compared to SOASTA. While RedLine13 does have fewer features, the core testing features are all there. Additionally, even with the free plan, RedLine13 offers users the ability to run an unlimited amount of tests with an unlimited amount of users. As soon as you opt for a basic $50 per month subscription (not shown), you can run load tests for as long as you want; something that is not possible with SOASTA unless you have an enterprise plan.
The biggest difference between SOASTA and RedLine13 is price; RedLine13 is objectively more affordable. Some of SOASTA’s clients include Walmart, Apple, Microsoft, and Nike, and obviously only a fraction of businesses have similar budgets when it comes to load testing. So to get the most out of using RedLine13 and SOASTA, it would be optimal to build and run the vast majority of your tests with RedLine13. Once you’ve honed in on exactly what you want to test, you can then use SOASTA for your larger tests that need more features and detailed reporting. General, day-to-day testing can be done with RedLine13, and when you need more, you can opt for SOASTA’s on-demand service. The combination of these two services will save you time and money, while giving you access to all of the features and tools that both solutions offer.