These both testing methods are interconnected with each other as load testing works as a subset of performance testing but if we go through detailed study there are various differences found in both procedures.

Performance Testing:

It is based on quality approach which means measuring the response time of a system. Performance testing is often done in conjunction with stress testing. Basically this testing method defines the effectiveness or performance of software program. This technique ascertains how the components of a system are performing at a particular situation. Resource used, scalability and reliablity is also validated under this testing method.

The primary objective of performance testing consists of establishing the benchmark behaviour of the system. Its goal does not include to find defects in the application but it addresses a little more critical task of testing the benchmark and standard set for the application. Main features of performance testing include accuracy, close monitoring and results of the test.

“In software engineering, performance testing is testing that is performed, from one perspective, to determine how fast some aspect of a system performs under a particular workload. It can also serve to validate and verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage.”

In short, performance testing is to tune the system to achieve maximum performance.

Load Testing:

This testing method is based on a quantitative approach which means it is the process of putting demand on a system or device and measuring its response. When the load placed on the system is raised beyond normal usage patterns, in order to test the system’s response at unusually high or peak loads, here the method comes which is known as stress testing.

Load testing is also famous by names like volume testing and endurance testing. The main goal of load testing is to assign the system largest job to test the endurance and monitoring the output. The purpose of this testing is to describe the defects in application related to buffer overflow, memory leaks and mismanagement of memory. Load testing is a part of a more general process known as performance testing.

The term “load testing” is usually defined as the process of exercising the system under test by feeding it the largest tasks it can operate with. There are many important bugs which simply do not surface unless you deal with very large entities such as thousands of users in repositories and here the use of load testing arises.

Conclusion:

Load testing is the simplest form of performance tests. A load check is usually completed to understand the behavior of the application provided under some expected number of concurrent users in the application. Performance testing is the check that is completed, with a view to select how rapidly some aspect of a technique performs under a particular workload.