

Show HN: Calibre Test Profiles – Test your sites under real world conditions - benschwarz
https://calibreapp.com
Hi HN! I&#x27;m Ben, the solo founder of Calibre Analytics: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;calibreapp.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;calibreapp.com</a>. Calibre monitors websites and applications in a clean-room testing environment from all over the world. Up until January Calibre has been an &quot;inbetween other things&quot; &#x2F; evenings &#x2F; holidays kind of project. (Only, oops—I did that for four years.). Last year I knuckled down to get into the position where I could work on it full time.<p>I&#x27;ve spent the last 8 weeks working on &quot;Test profiles&quot; (The launch post is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;get-calibre&#x2F;announcing-test-profiles-and-budgets-2-0-84667a4e4749" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;get-calibre&#x2F;announcing-test-profiles-and-...</a>) — It allows you to emulate hardware devices (cpu speed, user-agents and screen dimensions), as well as limit the bandwidth (latency, download and upload speeds), and set cookies (you could use this to log into your app, test a staff-shipped feature, or maybe turn off advertising and see the performance impact.) I think I&#x27;ve finally got the basis of a really powerful tool, and I&#x27;m keen to share it with… everyone! I do everything myself, so if you&#x27;ve any questions, I&#x27;m here to answer them!
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benschwarz
Hi HN! I'm Ben, the solo founder of Calibre Analytics:
[https://calibreapp.com](https://calibreapp.com). Calibre monitors websites
and applications in a clean-room testing environment from all over the world.
Up until January Calibre has been an "inbetween other things" / evenings /
holidays kind of project. (Only, oops—I did that for four years.).

Last year I knuckled down to get into the position where I could work on it
full time. I've spent the last 8 weeks working on "Test profiles" (The launch
post is here: [https://medium.com/get-calibre/announcing-test-profiles-
and-...](https://medium.com/get-calibre/announcing-test-profiles-and-
budgets-2-0-84667a4e4749)) — It allows you to emulate hardware devices (cpu
speed, user-agents and screen dimensions), as well as limit the bandwidth
(latency, download and upload speeds), and set cookies (you could use this to
log into your app, test a staff-shipped feature, or maybe turn off advertising
and see the performance impact.)

I think I've finally got the basis of a really powerful tool, and I'm keen to
share it with… everyone! I do everything myself, so if you've any questions,
I'm here to answer them!

~~~
pspeter3
Is it only clean room metrics or can you also collect metrics from actual
users?

~~~
benschwarz
Atm, the focus is clean room, but real time/user metrics are on the
horizon—especially when the company is more than just me!

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techwizrd
I totally mistook this for Calibre[0], the open-source e-book app.

The site looks really good. This is a very impressive product for an "in-
between other things"/evenings/holidays kind of project. My only issue is that
the animation of the application window coming up can sometimes be laggy.

0: [https://calibre-ebook.com/](https://calibre-ebook.com/)

~~~
benschwarz
Yeah… that animation isn't what it should be for a performance
product—luckily, after this (and the lighthouse integration I'm working on
right now), I'll have all-new marketing too!

Edit: Thank you! :-)

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thomasfromcdnjs
Calibre seems to be one of the only website performance testing tools that is
keeping up with the new "user centric" website performance stuff coming out of
Google aka Lighthouse.

I quite enjoyed watching this brain storm session with Paul Irish around
Lighthouse and new metrics for measuring website performance in a meaningful
way.

Edit: Forgot to include the link ->
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXGMesq_8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXGMesq_8s)

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packetized
Test profiles is an especially interesting idea, something that I don't
believe other tools in this space (Gomez/Compuware APN, ThousandEyes) have
quite yet. Other than test profiles, what sets Calibre apart?

~~~
benschwarz
Without being super familiar with the tech that any of these companies are
running —

The biggest thing that sets Calibre apart is that its entirely built using the
Chrome developer tools APIs. I like to think about it as someone on your team
who opened devtools after every deploy, and kept a neat spreadsheet of all the
changes that had occurred. In short, all the data is ready and available for
the taking.

This also has the added benefit that I have the power of the Chrome browser to
play with. Projects like Google's Lighthouse
([https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/)
— Which I'm currently integrating into Calibre!) have meant that a lot more
powerful tools/metrics/resources/etc are coming along strongly, and this will
only help make Calibre more powerful too.

Calibre is firmly focused on what your users actually experience, and helping
you get to the bottom of 'why' quickly and efficiently. So while technically
focused tools are imperative for any team, many of them aren't focused on the
most important people in the equation.

Also, thanks — Good question.

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joshstrange
I'd suggest a name change as calibre is already well established open source
e-book management software. From my results you are the 6th result on google
searching for "calibre".

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ianstormtaylor
Congrats on the launch! This is really inspiring to see how polished a solo-
founded startup can be :)

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adamgamble
We've been using calibre app on Vecteezy and its helped us keep track (and
improve) our site performance. Its a great tool and continues to improve!

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nlx
Nice product, been watching this for a while. Looking forwards to using it in
anger soon.

~~~
benschwarz
Please do! There's a fairly relaxed 14 day trial. (And you get a fresh trial
if you create a new "team"/organisation

