Many companies have favored continuous testing for its role in accelerating productivity while maintaining strong code quality. Nonetheless, choosing the right continuous testing tool is not an easy task. The reason being testers need to evaluate not only the tools’ supported test types and programming languages but also their accessibility and CI/CD ecosystem support.
Therefore, we have chosen the top 10 continuous test tools based on the above requirements. We also considered other factors such as special features that would benefit the stakeholders in conducting continuous testing as well. Without any further ado, let’s begin.
Selenium
Website: http://www.seleniumhq.org/
License: Open-source
The first entry on our list is a classic — Selenium. Built as an open-source framework, Selenium is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems and can run tests on various browsers(Chrome, Firefox, Safari just to name a few) in addition to web application testing.
The solution, especially when used by capable testers, boasts a diverse range of automated web testing and continuous testing. It also supports parallel testing and its test scripts are transferable across different environments. On the other hand, it can be challenging to use Selenium’s CI/CD tools if you don’t possess great programming skills or just get to know the solution’s functionalities.
Appium
Website: http://appium.io/
License: Open-source
Next on our list is Appium, a mobile application testing tool available for IOS, Android, and cloud service providers.
The tool allows for users to write, upload, execute and view test results directly on the cloud as more and more cloud providers have allowed Appium to function on their infrastructure. Besides, the tool features cross-platform testing capabilities while also allowing users to conduct tests on simulators and emulators.
Much like Selenium, Appium is the best tool for experienced teams to fully integrate the tool into the CI/CD Pipeline. As you will find out in this list, we have listed several options with a more shallow learning curve to accommodate users without deep knowledge of CI tools or their relative framework.
Katalon Studio
Website: https://www.katalon.com/
License: Free & Commercial
Katalon Studio is a free test automation tool for APIs, web applications, desktop apps, and mobile applications. It is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.
Katalon's complete collection of informative reports, real-time monitoring, and an instant feedback mechanism will detect any emergent issues in the CI/CD pipeline and DevOps support. The solution is compatible with popular continuous integration platforms such as Jenkins, Bamboo, Azure, CircleCI, and Jira Agile. As a result, Katalon facilitates team performance.
For users that struggle to adopt Selenium or Appium for their continuous testing purposes, Katalon also offers out-of-the-box continuous testing components, all without having to write test scripts or configure from scratch. Additionally, Katalon Studio also features sophisticated extensions for professionals. The plugins available in the Katalon Store can assist you in extending automation capabilities and simply integrating with other CI/CD applications. Moreover, they provide their free resource to learn Automation Testing in Katalon Academy
Watir
Website: http://watir.com/
License: Open-source
Watir is a web application test solution available on Windows that supports cross-browser testing with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
While Watir is limited to only one OS and can only run simplistic tests, it enables data-driven testing as well as headless browser testing, both of which are required for CI/CD pipeline testing. Watir is also compatible with Behavioral Driven Development (BDD) tools and frameworks such as Cucumber, RSpect, and Test/Unit.
As such, your team can still achieve effective continuous testing throughout the development lifecycle by combining Watir with BDD frameworks and connecting with CI technologies (e.g. Jenkins).
Testsigma
Website: https://testsigma.com/
License: Commercial
Enterprises with limited testing resources or complex testing requirements may rely on the solution's continuous testing infrastructure for devices, operating systems, and browsers. Moreover, Testsigma is a cloud-based software that composes tests in English, which helps manual testers learn automation by flattening the learning curve. The solution is compatible with web, mobile, and API platforms.
For continuous testing adoption, Testsigma supports and integrates popular CI/CD tools such as Jira, Slack, and Jenkins. More notably, Testsigma uses AI to assist in shift-left testing and test case maintenance to highlight possible dangers from continuous change, allowing users to take quick action.
Eggplant
Website: https://eggplant.io/
License: Commercial
Besides Katalon Studio, Eggplant is another easy-to-adopt testing solution. It features a special test automation approach — Applications Under Test (AUTs) which display images for ease of viewing in place of raw test scripts.
Moreover, Eggplant Eggplant a test lab, a cloud device management solution functions round the clock for continuous testing and deployment. Furthermore, Eggplant enables connection with the CI/CD ecosystem such as Jenkins, Bamboo, CA Agile Requirements Designers, and others. Finally, Eggplant also boasts a record and playback tool — Undo, that can help testers notice and respond to defects more efficiently.
Unified Functional Tester
Website: https://software.microfocus.com/software/uft
License: Commercial
Micro Focus Unified Functional Tester (UFT) is a forerunner that appeared at the pinnacle of test automation trends.
UFT offers automated and continuous testing for online, mobile, API, hybrid, Robotics Process Automation (RPA), and enterprise applications. It has image-based identification driven by built-in OCR (ABBYY, Google Tesseract) that mimics how people recognize items.
The combination of UFT ecosystem components such as source control systems (Git, SVN), and CI/CD technologies facilitates continuous testing (e.g. Jenkins, Bamboo, Microsoft TFS).
UFT's programming language is VBScript, which may be difficult for manual testers. As a result, before choosing a tool, consider analyzing its existing scripting capabilities.
Rational Functional Tester
Website: https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/rational-functional-tester
License: Commercial
Rational Functional Tester (RFT) offers functional, data-driven, API, performance, and regression testing. RFT includes many cooperation modes, including storyboard testing for visualizing testing methods and scripting for more complicated projects.
The program also allows for continuous testing and the execution of tests in the CI/CD pipeline. However, because the tool was released a long time ago, it comes with out-of-date technology.
As a result, the setup procedure might be difficult, especially for inexperienced users, because the tool demands significant technical understanding in DevOps. If properly incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline, nonetheless, the remainder of the operation may be rapidly completed.
TestComplete
Website: https://smartbear.com/product/testcomplete/overview/
License: Commercial
TestComplete is a test automation solution for desktop, online, and mobile apps. Python, Javascript, and VBScript are among the scripting languages supported by the program. TestComplete can run keyword and data-driven tests. It can also use AI capabilities for dynamic test item selection and management. If the AUT's user interface changes, TestComplete may identify and update the tests automatically.
For API testing, the program enables third-party unit test frameworks namely TestNG, Selenium Webdriver, and SOAP UI. All of them will help you improve your test coverage.
With plugins that connect with standard CI/CD systems such as Jenkins, GIT, and Zephyr, TestComplete offers open integration with the CI/CD ecosystem so you may also create new plugins to work with the current system.
Tosca
Website: https://www.tricentis.com/
License: Commercial
For business stakeholders that want to approach the testing process, Tosca is the solution for you. Tosca enables enterprise applications, online, mobile, APIs, and business intelligence testing. The solution may also provide certain important test cases for the team to swiftly identify and focus down the application's most problematic regions.
Tosca provides a platform that connects with DevOps and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems as a continuous and DevOps testing solution. Tosca provides virtual services to assist its users in simulating the test environments that would be encountered in production, allowing the team to enhance test coverage and assure product quality.
Conclusion
With the right tools, achieving continuous testing will no doubt ensure your company’s quality product rollout at speed. Nonetheless, the right tool in question may vary based not only on their features and CI/CD system support but a myriad of other factors such as your teams’ technical know-how and dynamics.
This is the case for the entries that we have selected. One might boast special functions that require specific CI knowledge to properly use, while others that are easy to instantly employ might be limited in scope. At the same time, this list is not exhaustive. As a result, it is up to you to choose and settle for one that best suits your and your team’s needs.
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