Using gnuplot to plot apache benchmark data

Gnuplot

Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven graphing utility for various platforms like Linux, OS X, Windows and many more. It’s free to use and was originally created to allow scientists and students to visualize mathematical functions and data interactively.

Installing Gnuplot

If you don’t allready have gnuplot installed then first intall it.
On mac:

brew install gnuplot

On linux:

sudo apt-get install gnuplot

Configure Gnuplot

This tutorial requires that you have already created a benchmark test. If you haven’t you can read here how to create an apache benchmark performance test. After installation, you can then create a file to graph the data you’ve created:

vim apache-benchmark.p

In the file, put the following:

# output as png image
set terminal png

# save file to "benchmark.png"
set output "benchmark.png"

# graph title
set title "ab -n 1000 -c 50 -g out.data http://192.168.0.198/"

#nicer aspect ratio for image size
set size 1,0.7

# y-axis grid
set grid y

#x-axis label
set xlabel "request"

#y-axis label
set ylabel "response time (ms)"

#plot data from "out.data" using column 9 with smooth sbezier lines
plot "out.data" using 9 smooth sbezier with lines title "something"

Visualize your apache benchmark performance test

Next run the gnuplot command to create the image

gnuplot apache-benchmark.p

That’s it, you can then open the image for visual inspection.

open benchmark.png

Performance test example