ab (ApacheBench)
ab (ApacheBench) — Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool for measuring requests per second and latency from the command line.
Our Verdict
A quick-and-dirty benchmark hammer that is great for one-off checks but wrong for serious load testing.
Pros
- Ships with Apache, zero install on most Linux boxes
- Dead simple CLI for quick RPS and latency checks
- Negligible resource footprint on the load generator
- Perfect for smoke-testing a single endpoint fast
Cons
- Single-threaded, struggles to saturate modern servers
- No scripting, cannot chain requests or vary payloads
- HTTP/1.0 only, no keep-alive reuse across connections
- Coordinated omission skews latency percentiles
Best for: Sysadmins doing quick sanity benchmarks on a single HTTP endpoint from the shell
Not for: Teams needing realistic user flows, HTTP/2, or accurate tail-latency numbers
When to Use ab (ApacheBench)
Good fit if you need
- Benchmark REST endpoints at 10K requests/sec
- Measure latency percentiles before and after optimizations
- Stress test Apache/Nginx configs with concurrent connections
- Quick smoke test after deployment to verify throughput
Lock-in Assessment
High 5/5
Lock-in Score 5/5
Pricing
Price wrong?ab (ApacheBench) Pricing
- Pricing Model
- free
- Free Tier
- Yes
- Entry Price
- —
- Enterprise Available
- No
- Transparency Score
- —
Beta — estimates may differ from actual pricing
1,000
1001K10K100K1M
Estimated Monthly Cost
$25
Estimated Annual Cost
$300
Estimates are approximate and may not reflect current pricing. Always check the official pricing page.
Community Discussion
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