Session Testing | Overview

Why Session Patterns Matter More Than You Think

User Behavior Patterns

Different users interact with your application in vastly different ways - some might make 100 requests in a single session, while others create multiple short sessions with just 10 requests each. These patterns significantly impact performance, especially with TLS overhead and session management.

Load Balancing Challenges

Load balancing strategies can dramatically affect application behavior. Without proper session affinity, requests from the same user may be routed to different servers, breaking in-memory session state and forcing unnecessary database lookups. Cache efficiency plummets when the same data needs to be loaded repeatedly across different nodes.

Distributed System Complexity

Distributed systems add even more complexity - sticky sessions may work well for some traffic patterns but cause severe imbalances under others. Applications relying on distributed caches or event propagation between nodes can experience race conditions or inconsistencies that only emerge under specific user interaction patterns. Traditional synthetic testing tools often miss these crucial real-world scenarios.

Security & Rate Limiting

Even seemingly simple features like rate limiting or fraud detection can behave unexpectedly when session handling isn't properly tested. A user's requests split across multiple servers might bypass rate limits, while legitimate traffic patterns could trigger false positives when testing doesn't accurately reflect real session behavior.

Multi-Session User Patterns

Users with varying session behaviors (10 short vs 100 long requests)

Critical for realistic TLS handshake and server load testing

Load Balanced Systems

Complex session affinity requirements across nodes

Ensures proper request routing and session maintenance

High-Performance APIs

Connection pooling with session persistence

Optimizes TLS overhead and system resources

Common Session Testing Pitfalls

Unrealistic Session Patterns

Traditional tools treat all sessions equally, missing real-world variations

TLS Performance Impact

Excessive handshakes from improper session handling causing slowdowns

Load Balancer Incompatibility

Session affinity breaks when requests route to wrong servers

GoReplay Editions Comparison

While both editions offer powerful traffic replay capabilities, they differ significantly in how they handle sessions and user patterns. Community Edition maintains timing but treats all requests as a single sequence, while PRO provides true session-aware replay.

Community Edition

Simple but effective replay with preserved timing - all requests handled in a single sequence

Request timing and order preserved

Maintains accurate timing between requests
Simple request handling

All requests are processed in a single sequence
Basic keepalive

Basic connection handling with default timeouts

PRO Edition

Advanced session-aware replay that maintains real-world user patterns and system optimizations

True session boundaries

Preserves distinct user sessions and their unique patterns
Session affinity

Routes related requests to the same server for consistent sessions
TLS session persistence

Optimizes connection and TLS handshake overhead
Connection pooling

Smart reuse of connections for better performance
Load balancer compatibility

Maintains proper session routing across distributed systems

Real-World Session Testing Makes the Difference