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.
Related Software
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|---|---|
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| wrk | Modern HTTP benchmarking tool |
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| AutoCannon | Fast HTTP/1.1 benchmarking tool |
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| bombardier | Uses fasthttp instead of Go’s default http library, |
| ApacheBench | Apache (and other web servers) benchmark tool |
| Cassowary | Modern HTTP/S, intuitive & cross-platform load testing tool built in Go |
| Drill | HTTP load testing application written in Rust |
| httperf | HTTP load generator |
| FunkLoad | Web testing tool in the same spirit as Perl's WWW::Mechanize |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

