Ajax Performance

WebWait

Michael Mahemoff, of ajaxpatterns.org and author of the seminal Ajax Design Patterns*, has released WebWait, an Ajax-aware, in-browser performance testing tool. You load a URL within an iframe (with sexy lightbox opacity, naturally), and the total page load time, including background Ajax calls, is reported in the parent window (and a sexy lightbox overlay, naturally).

It’s a neat tool because the testing runs within your Firefox, Opera, and IE browsers and includes all of your local cookie settings. There’s a flip side to that coin, though, as caching effects are going to obscure most content download contribution to page load time. I’m also a bit concerned that there isn’t a tremendous amount of room for the tool to grow; currently you only get start time to page onload level granularity out of the captive iframe, and I’m not sure it’s possible to collect much more than that with this technique. XSS protections make it impossible, as far as I know, to collect DOMReady or more granular load time metrics, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael has some tricks up his sleeves to overcome those limitations.

As I’ve posted previously, collecting Ajax performance information directly within the browser is compelling and provides a level of insight that simply isn’t available with other techniques. It’s great to see so much focus on Ajax-aware performance testing these days.

* Michael’s book was a freebie for attending Ajax Experience Boston, but I never received my copy due to some sad twist of fate involving inadequate or late shipments, hint-hint if anyone from Ajaxian happens to be reading