What's new in Apache JMeter 5.3?

This post originally appeared on my blog QAInsights.

Today Apache has released its next iteration of JMeter version 5.3 with new features, bug fixes, and enhancements. It's been almost five months since its last release 5.2.1. You can check out earlier post about what's new in Apache JMeter 5.2.1. In this blog post, we are going to see what's new in JMeter 5.3.

How to download Apache JMeter 5.3?

Head to https://jmeter.apache.org/download_jmeter.cgi to download the latest version of JMeter and verify its integrity.

Extract the contents and navigate to bin folder and launch jmeter.bat in Windows or jmeter.sh in Mac or Linux.

What's new in Apache JMeter 5.3?

Start up time

I am seeing a significant improvement in the startup time in Windows 10 Pro. Splash screen vanishing quicker which brings the JMeter IDE instantly.

New Themes

More themes have been added in JMeter 5.3 including various look and feel of Darklaf theme. My favorite is Darklaf - IntelliJ during day; Darklaf - Darcula during night.

No need to restart JMeter after changing the theme and you can also see the radio button of the list of themes which will denote the current selected theme in the menu.

Similarly for Log Level selection.

Visual representation of Disabled elements

In JMeter 5.3 if you disable any element now it will disable all its descendants. In below example memorySample2 and its child elements are disabled too.

Also, you could see the tracing of the selected element to understand its indentation.

Zoom in/out shortcut now is CTRL + ALT + wheel. JMeter 5.3 now scales better and looks consistent across all the elements.

Now you can Undo/Redo

We all make mistakes, now you can undo/redo field level changes. Here is the quick GIF.

Most of elements has undergone UI revamp. Its looks tidy.

Generate Schematic View is still in alpha.

New JMeter Template

There is a new template has been added called Functional Testing Test Plan which has a Thread Group and View Results Tree.

Groovy library has been updated to 3.0.3 which means your older Groovy script might break in JMeter 5.3.

Apart from above features, there have been bug fixes, UX revamp across elements, non-functional changes and many more in JMeter 5.3.

When are you going to upgrade your project artifacts to JMeter 5.3? Please share me your plan.