What's a good tool for stress testing websites?

[mendhak]

Or to be more specific, I want to specify a specific URL, just one page, which I want stress tested. I want to overload it with requests to see if our failover code works on it.

Any tools for this, preferably a free one?

[mendhak]

Oh come on, I know you guys have used tools for stress testing websites!

One, for example, is Microsoft Application Center Test, which doesn't really do a very good job, as it is very basic.

[Memnoch1207]

You might look into Mercury LoadRunner (http://www.mercury.com/us/products/performance-center/loadrunner/) .