Load testing is a crucial aspect of software development that ensures an application performs well under normal conditions, simulating multiple users accessing it concurrently. It's essential to distinguish between load testing and stress testing, as the latter aims to discover where a system starts to break, whereas load testing seeks to understand how the system performs under normal conditions. Load testing is often performed sporadically or at significant software milestones, and various tools exist to aid in automated testing, including Apache JMeter, LoadNinja, LoadRunner, and Eggplant. These tools help teams plan, set up, analyze, and measure user experience, identifying bottlenecks and areas for improvement, ultimately saving organizations from costly performance errors.