ApacheBench (ab) is an open source tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your current Apache installation performs. This shows you how many requests per second your Apache installation can serve.
The ab tool comes bundled with the standard Apache source distribution. ab is distributed in the apache2-utils package in Ubuntu.
The package includes other useful software for webservers such as logresolve, htpasswd, htdigest, rotatelogs, and split-logfile.
Key Features
- Can test any web server, not just Apache.
- Run more than one instance of ab on machines with multiple processor cores.
- Proxy support.
Website: httpd.apache.org
Support: Manual page
Developer: Apache Software Foundation
License: Apache License 2.0

ApacheBench is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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