First and second simulated processing of a stream-based computing application using respective first and second simulation conditions may be performed. The first and second simulation conditions may specify first and second operator graph configurations. Each simulated processing may include inputting a stream of test tuples to the stream-based computing application, which may operate on one or more compute nodes. Each compute node may have one or more computer processors and a memory to store one or more processing elements. Each simulated processing may be monitored to determine one or more performance metrics. The first and second simulated processings may be sorted based on a first performance metric to identify a simulated processing having a first rank. An operator graph configuration associated with the simulated processing having the first rank may be selected if the first performance metric for the simulated processing having the first rank is within a processing constraint.