eValid vs. TruClient

Question Recently Posted On The eValid User Forum:
Hey eValid! What do you think about HP's announcement of their TruClient technology? Isn't this what you guys do? --WebTestGadfly

Our Response On The Forum:
Yes, true client based testing and performance analysis -- including server loading -- is what we have been offering with our solution for many years. We believe we were the first to put this idea out there, and we believe we have the very best everything-in-the-browser test engine possible.

The HP solution appears (we have not yet had much direct experience with it) to be based on the Selenium solution, in which JavaScript executions drive the browser. If that's the case, then the objections we have always expressed about the JavaScript approach would apply equally to HP's offering: High overhead, skewing of timing data, lack of scaling, and the requirement to be a programmer to get useful results.

On a positive note many here at eValid think that HP's announcement represents a real "sea change" in the community. Previously the position by the "big three" was that simulating the behavior of an AJAX user on an application could be adequately handled with the "http/s traffic generation" methods that have been highly developed over time.

The "sea change" is that at least one of the "big three" has explicitly admitted that to accurately simulate an AJAX user you really DO have to use a complete browser. So this is a victory -- perhaps even a genuine vindication, if you will -- for the eValid approach, which has ALWAYS been based on the use of the fully automated eValid browser.