The importance of testing your software before its release can hardly be overestimated. In today’s economy, businesses have to deliver high-quality solution fast and with minimum costs. Speed and cost-efficiency are the two main reasons test automation is used alongside manual testing to ensure the software is of high quality.
Automation testing tools are constantly evolving to be able to get the most out of other technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This is why we recommend reviewing the tools you are using for test automation from time to time and turning to professional help to choose the most suitable tools and set up continuous automated testing for your software solution.
In case you are in the process of finding a tech partner for automated testing, we’ve got you covered – we prepared the list of top five automation testing tools that we can set up for your solution to ensure it always stays top-notch.
5 Best Automation Testing Tools
We’ve selected the following tools based on a variety of criteria, including its automation capabilities, required programming skills, ease of installation and use, analytics features and maturity. So, get comfortable and find out what tools made it into our list (in no particular order).
Selenium
Pricing: free
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Among all the automation testing tools Selenium is, undoubtedly, the king in popularity among testers: 84% of Test Automation Challenges Survey respondents have used Selenium. Selenium offers two tools for test automation: Selenium WebDriver and Selenium IDE. The former one is used for regression testing, whereas the latter one is for conducting bug reproduction and exploratory tests.
It’s loved for its robust application cases: you can run tests for a number of browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge). What is more, you don’t need to set up a special server for testing purposes. As for supported scripting languages, you can write and execute scripts written in C#, Java, Groovy, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, and Scala.
Katalon Studio
Pricing: free (paid business support services are available)
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Launched in 2015, Katalon Studio is one of the latest automation testing tools in market. Although its developing maturity may be an issue for some, Katalon Studio has a lot to offer in terms of testing APIs, web and mobile applications.
Katalon Studio was built based on two well-known open-source frameworks (namely, Selenium and Appium), so it took the best out of them. One of the key improvements is that, unlike it’s with Selenium, you don’t need to waste time setting up additional libraries and frameworks. All in all, Katalon Studio is suitable for both coding-savvy and novices in programming.
Like UFT and other mobile and web automation testing tools, Katalon Studio is based on the keyword-driven approach towards creating tests and the data-driven approach towards running them.
TestComplete
Pricing: starts from €1,067 per module (free trial available)
Supported Platforms: Windows
Created by SmartBear, TestCompleteis a proprietary tool for automating functional and various GUI tests for web, desktop, and mobile applications. Using this tool, you can generate tests by recording your actions, create them using the keyword-driven approach or write them in any of the supported languages (JavaScript, Python, VBScript, etc.).
As one of the most innovative web, desktop and mobile app automation testing tools, TestComplete is the first one to implement AI into its functionality. With AI’s help, object recognition is taken to a completely new level: AI-powered visual recognition combined with the property-based one allows for detecting the UI elements easy and fast, with no false positives or inaccuracies.
Soap UI
Pricing: free and paid versions available (the subscription for the paid version starts from €595 per year)
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Although it’s not among web and/or mobile app automation testing tools, SoapUI still deserves our attention as it’s one of the top API testing tools out there. SoapUI supports creating tests using the drag-and-drop method or by scripting them with JavaScript or VB.
SoapUI allows you to test both REST and SOAP services. As for the scope of tests, you can use this tool to conduct functional, performance, security testing, as well as API mocking and data-driven tests.
All in all, using SoapUI, you can make sure that your API work properly under huge loads, function as intended, and are secure. Apart from that, SoapUI provides you with valuable insights into the testing data with detailed reports.
Ranorex
Pricing: starts from €2,290 (free trial available)
Supported Platforms: Windows
Ranorex is one of the automation testing tools for mobile applications, web-based and desktop apps. This all-in-one testing tool will work both for beginners and savvy testers. It supports testing native Android and iOS apps; web apps in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge browsers; and desktop apps developed using .NET, WPF, VB6, Java, etc.
As for the tests themselves, Ranorex allows conducting full end-to-end tests, including GUI and functional tests. You can run the tests locally and remotely, as well as on real devices or using emulators. After the tests are done, you get detailed reports with the results of the testing.
Conclusion
Of course, our list is far from being final – there are many more automation tools for specific or multi-purpose needs. To help you wrap your head around the top five tools we’ve described above, we’ve prepared a comparison table that you can take a look at below. We’ve included five more automation testing tools for web applications popular on the market to help you make a more informed choice.
Name Pricing Purpose Platforms Scripting Languages Required Programming Skills Selenium Free Web app testing Windows, Linux, macOS C#, Groovy, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Scala Advanced Katalon Studio Freeware API, web and mobile app testing Windows, Linux, macOS Java/Groovy None (advanced for complex test scripts) TestComplete €1,000+ Web, mobile, desktop app testing Windows JavaScript, Python, VBScript, VB, JScript, DelphiScript None (advanced for complex test scripts) Soap UI Free (paid version available at €595+ per year) API testing Windows, Linux, macOS JavaScript, Groovy None (advanced for complex test scripts) Ranorex €2,290+ Desktop, web, mobile app testing Windows C#, VB.NET None (advanced for complex test scripts)
All in all, today you can find a tool for any taste, purpose, and wallet – you just need to know where to start looking. Of course, choosing the automation testing tool and setting it up according to your particular needs is no piece of cake. Luckily for you, we specialize in selecting the appropriate tools, weighing in their pros and cons in your particular case, and adjusting them to your needs. So, if you are ready to get one step closer to ensuring your web application’s quality, reach out to us today, and we’ll help you choose and set up the automation tool(s) that suit you best.
Stay tuned for the second part of our automation testing tools overview!
