Ever wonder how many requests your $5 a month Digital Ocean server can handle? Using Loader.io’s free load testing tool can help you do just that! It’s a good idea to know what your server can handle so you can be prepared to handle large spikes in traffic. This could mean increasing the specs on your current server, adding a load balancer or using round robin dns to distribute the request to multiple servers.
To start, I would recommend getting a baseline of your current request per minutes your app receives using a tool like ngxtop for Nginx servers or New Relic. Once you have an idea what your current infrastructure can handle, you can use Loader.io to simulate 2x or 3x the number of requests. If you start receiving errors(timeouts, etc.), you have a general idea when your app will start to fail.
Loader.io also has a schedule feature that sends you a report and keeps a history of past tests. This can be useful to know if your app is slower due to code changes or an increase in load.
Loader.io has been a great tool to know how my servers are handling the ever increasing request for my Weather Extension. Let me know if you give Loader.io a try and what you think.
Thanks for reading. Make sure you follow me on Twitter to stay up to date on the progress of my side projects T.LY, Weather Extension, and Link Shortener Extension. If you are interested in the tech I use daily, check out my uses page.