Tag Archives: xceptance

XLT – Now Available Free Of Charge

Update: Please see Xceptance LoadTest Goes Open Source for the next step in the evolution of XLT.

Because it is always great to end the year with something pleasant and start the next year with something even better, we want to surprise you with the announcement that Xceptance LoadTest (XLT) will be free of charge for load and performance testing starting 1 January 2018. XLT was already free for use in test automation.

Why are we doing this? Well, we have seen many people working with other performance test tools over the years and found that often they chose one primarily because of the price or simply because it was already a familiar tool in the company. This is not necessarily bad but it is certainly not always optimal.

People run into seat limits, operating system limitations, debugging limits, extensibility limits, have to use poor reporting, or cannot adjust features or functionalities. We want to give the testing world a tool that will be chosen because it fits and not because the license is cheaper or has already been purchased. Or in other words: You have more choices now.

Xceptance and its customers have been using XLT for many years. What started as a quick workaround because commercial tools had no affordable license a consulting company could use, grew into a versatile tool with a focus on great reporting and diagnostic capabilities.

We will update the license portal to the new model in the next few days and also rework our website accordingly. We just didn’t want to wait to tell our existing customers and take one worry off the 2018 budget table.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

New Free-License Terms

Obviously some context is needed to make clearer what you can do with XLT and its free-of-charge license now.

  • XLT is available free of charge but you still need a license file from us. Request this license from Xceptance via email (support@xceptance.de) or use our license portal, and we will issue you one without any user or time limits.
  • You can use XLT for commercial purposes as long as you do not sell XLT itself or create the impression that XLT is your own software. You can sell software components built on top of XLT.
  • You must not modify XLT in any way. But you can customize test suites, demos, templates, or other customizable components such as CSS or XSL as long as you distribute these components separately.
  • You cannot offer XLT for download, excluding your local Maven/Nexus repositories and company internal redistribution, of course.
  • You cannot integrate XLT into public SaaS or other commercial or noncommercial hosting offers without explicit permission from us. If you built your own company-internal cloud for load testing for instance, that is of course permitted.
  • You cannot share your license outside of your organization. If you are a consulting company or freelancer, we encourage your clients to request their own licenses, but we do not require it. All licenses are personalized with email and company name.

FAQ

Is XLT open source now?

No, XLT is still closed source; we just stopped charging you for using it.

Will updates be free, too?

Yes, updates stay free. Please make sure you sign up for our release newsletter. Purchasing a support contract allows us to support you faster and more directly.

Can I use XLT commercially?

Yes, you can. Just request a license. If you are not sure whether your usage pattern is covered by our free-license terms, please ask. If you have interesting business ideas or applications for XLT, we are here to help.

Will Xceptance continue to invest in XLT?

Yes, we will continue to invest in and enhance XLT because it is an integral part of our company’s load and performance testing services. Product development is funded by the support, training, and testing services provided by Xceptance.

Xceptance at 11th Charity Relay in Jena

Yes, we did it again. We’re athletic and we care for our community, so we took on another sports challenge and had three of us participate in the 11th Relay Race in Jena, a charity run covering a 3x2km distance.

We had a lot of fun and did pretty well but most importantly we’re happy that this year’s funds will be donated to the Kindersprachbrücke Jena e.V., a local organization devoted to helping refugees and migrants, especially children and their families, learn German and find a new home in Jena.

Inaugural XLT Summit in Jena

On January 19-20, 2015, Xceptance held its first XLT Summit. About thirty representatives of well-known companies from a variety of fields, including finance, retail and eCommerce, all of whom use XLT to help them in developing web-based software applications, accepted our invitation to meet at Xceptance’s headquarters in Jena, Germany. The goal of the conference was to give XLT users the opportunity to discuss their experiences using our tool both with each other and with the internal XLT development team.

To kick things off, on January 19 we enjoyed a casual dinner in a local restaurant. The next day there was a varied program consisting of presentations contributed both by Xceptance colleagues and external users. Our customers reported on their practical experience using XLT, and had a chance to discuss their results with the other users. The many different applications of XLT–from load testing to test automation to application monitoring–were thus illustrated in light of actual day-to-day practice. A selection of these presentations can be found here: http://goo.gl/fPJj1Q, and parts of the presentation provided by our guests from OTTO.DE can be read here: http://dev.otto.de/.

In addition, the XLT development team presented the newest XLT features. Our guests had the opportunity to speak directly with the developers about their specific feature requests, some of which we were able to immediately agree to implement.

In short, the conference was a great success. In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants, the XLT Summit will now be a regular annual event.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all the attendees, without whose engagement, interest and suggestions the event would not have been possible!

Our New Website is Live!

New Xceptance WebsiteWe proudly announce that Xceptance has a new website. Our 10th anniversary made us look back on where we are coming from, what we have been doing and what experiences we gained throughout the past ten years. It was time to have a new web presence reflect all that!

We took advantage of Bootstrap, Less, Jekyll, Git, Font Awesome, and Jenkins to create a website that primarily wants to help our visitors quickly learn about Xceptance, our services and our product. We wanted it to be modern but plain so that we can communicate what we do in the most comprehensive and user-friendly way possible. No boasting, no bragging, and just a little bit about ourselves. To have it all look nice and work smoothly for the mobile users as well, we used Bootstrap.

Since we’re always looking for new people that want to join us, we added a comprehensive jobs page which lists current open positions in both our offices, Cambridge, MA, USA and Jena, Germany.

Go check it out for yourselves! As always, we appreciate any kind of feedback!

We’ve Adopted the Word “Testen”!

WortpatenschaftThere certainly are things out there that money can’t buy, just like the Beatles once sang. However, you might agree with us that money can do good (things), if managed appropriately.

With the company anniversary in mind we at Xceptance sought to combine both the good deeds and a great company gift. That’s how we found out about the idea of a ‘Wortpatenschaft‘ (engl.: “word sponsorship”), a campaign dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the German language (in cooperation with the German nonprofit association Deutsche Sprache e.V., Dortmund).

Continue reading We’ve Adopted the Word “Testen”!

10 Years of Xceptance – The Story

Ten years and 230 projects later it’s time to look back at the beginnings of Xceptance. Let us take you on a quick trip down memory lane!

The Story

In the beginning there was a small group of four colleagues who decided to take a chance and try something new. They pooled their resources, knowledge and QA experience and struck out on their own. The beginnings of Xceptance are thus all about passion and commitment and the belief in making software better.
Continue reading 10 Years of Xceptance – The Story

Xceptance it is!

Acceptance, huh? Be honest, you almost thought we were being serious about this whole name change! But, as convincing as it might have sounded, we’re not going to abandon our fancy company name, ever!

Despite the uncommon spelling we like our quirky label and the way it usually triggers follow-up questions. It is recognizable and fun and, once you got the hang of it, it sticks. We also trust in SEO and the sanity of our customers so that we don’t feel like there’s a reason to worry much about it. Of course there’ll always be the issue with auto-correction, but we think we can handle that. Having said this: Xceptance it is!

Xceptance becomes Acceptance

New Logo AcceptanceJust in time for our 10th anniversary, we are pleased to announce that the company is going to change its name from Xceptance to something more tangible and easier to pronounce: Acceptance.

With that, we are reacting to the release of a search engine list containing the different versions of the search term users entered to find Xceptance online. Terms reached from “Xcaptence” to “Ecceptance” and even “Axceptacne”. To us, this list was some kind of a wake-up call because we no longer want to take the risk of losing clients just because of a fancy company name. That’s why we decided to settle for this easier to google, user-friendly name because, after all, a company name should represent the company it stands for. An additional benefit of the new name: the auto-correction of mail and office software will never put a red mark on the company’s name again.

Within the coming week we’ll update the website and all other company-related content with the new name and logo. For our current clients and affiliates there won’t be any changes.