Apache Benchmark Client:

This is a Apache Benchmark like utility to measure the metrics of a page on a browser.

Metrics supported:

• TTFB (Time to First byte)
• DOM Interactive
• Page load time
• serverTime
• clientTime
• dns (Time taken to resolve DNS)

Usage:

Install the binaries npm install -g ab-client

Look at help guide for all options ab-client -h

Sample invocation ab-client --url 'https://google.com' --metrics dns,ttfb,domInteractiveTime,pageLoadTime

Benchmark results..:
URL:  https://google.com
# of trials: 1
Stats:

metric              min   max   mean  median
------------------  ----  ----  ----  ------
dns                 0     0     0     0
ttfb                990   990   990   990
domInteractiveTime  1146  1146  1146  1146
pageLoadTime        1910  1910  1910  1910

Dependencies:

• Pupeteer
• Node 8+

How does it work?

• AB-Client internally invokes the pupeteer in the headless mode.
• Capture the metrics using the navigation API
• Calculates the required metrics based on calculation.
• Averages over several samples and prints the stat.

Why should I use this over X?

This is a simple utility over existing tools and just provides the convenience, instead of adding new capabilities.

Some tools which provides same functionality:

• Pupeteer (which we internally use)
• LightHouse (Google's tool for reporting all stats)

Advantages:

• Appealing to Backend developers who are used to Apache BenchMark
• Easier to invoke through and configure
• Metrics can be calculated over several tries instead of just one like in lighthouse.