siege

Siege is a powerful command line tool used for load testing websites or web applications. It simulates multiple users accessing the target site simultaneously, allowing developers and system administrators to evaluate the performance and stability of their websites under heavy loads.

1. Siege generates a specified number of concurrent users to put a website through stress testing and can be used to perform benchmarking as well.

2. It supports a variety of HTTP methods such as GET, POST, HEAD, and HTTPS.

3. Siege allows users to define custom scenarios, specifying URL lists, user agents, HTTP headers, and cookies for each user to simulate realistic behavior.

4. It provides extensive statistics, including the number of transactions, availability percentage, response time, concurrency, and throughput.

5. Siege has a built-in reporting system that generates easy-to-read HTML reports with graphs to analyze the test results.

6. The tool supports distributing the load across multiple test hosts, allowing for distributed testing.

7. Siege can be configured to simulate real-world scenarios by setting think time, random delays, and adjusting the number of concurrent users to mimic the expected traffic pattern.

8. It features a verbose mode that displays detailed information about each transaction, including headers and response content.

9. Siege is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor their test scenarios by adjusting parameters like URL delays, connection rates, and testing duration.

10. It is an open-source tool, available for various platforms like Linux, Mac, and Windows, making it accessible to a wide range of users.