Top 5 Cross Browser Testing Tools

#testing #webdev #showdev #tips

In the virtual world, your website projects you. Every browser offers support for a unique blend of web technologies, but along with it there are limitations. Not all technologies are supported by all browsers. Seamless experience on one browser doesn’t guarantee the similar experience in all the browsers. And even though chrome constitutes for about 77.9 % of the market share according to Stats counter, we can never take our visitors for granted. It becomes extremely crucial that you test your website’s mettle on all the browsers to ensure justice served to your website. This is called cross-browser testing.

And this is where cross-browser testing tools come in. The main problem statement is that no developer can maintain a library of desktop and mobile devices that represent your demographic. Anybody would be hard pressed to maintain a library of all possible operating systems, their respective browsers, supported browser versions, devices, and screen sizes. That’s where these cloud tools come in. Here’s a list of top tools that can help you in finding and debugging issues that may creep in because of incompatibility with older browser versions.

The first four tools provide you with virtual machines on the cloud for testing, which is good for privacy as the virtual machines are destroyed after the testing session. While making this list I took into account speed, integrations, customer service response and value to money. Without further ado, here are the best cross-browser testing tools.

1. LambdaTest

It is a powerful tool that allows you to test your website across a pretty huge list of browsers and their respective versions. The reason why LambdaTest is on the first is because the tool is genuinely fast than the rest, especially with desktops, and they seem to focus more on customer satisfaction as their response to user problems is really quick. LambdaTest tool has really clean UI and provides an easy to use testing experience.

Key features:

Good collection of browsers and browser versions. The VMs are quite fast.
User can also increase their test coverage by running automation test scripts across 2000+ browsers to ensure that its customers get perfect experience across all browsers.
Utilizing this feature user can conduct selenium driven automated cross browser tests on a scalable, secure, and reliable cloud grid.
Full-featured Free plan. Unlike the rest, they don’t have any restriction on their free plan except on the number of test minutes per month. You can only use the VMs for 60 minutes every month. The minutes get renewed at the end of each month.
Apart from the real-time testing, LambdaTest offers Visual UI testing which includes screenshots, responsive, and smart testing which comes in handy while taking care of visual anomalies.
You can even test your locally hosted web pages through a tunnel.
Mobile browsers and resolutions can also be tested using simulators and emulators.
It has lower pricing than the rest, especially for multiple concurrent sessions.

Drawbacks:

They also don’t have APIs for running screenshots.

Pricing - 15$ for 1 concurrent session 25$ for 2 concurrent session

Free plan - 60 minutes of free testing that is renewed every month

2. Browserstack

Browserstack offers almost everything that its competitors offer. Along with Sauce Labs, it is one of the oldest players in this space with huge market share.

Key features:

The key feature seems to be the introduction to the test-dev environment where you can test all you can without setup and configuration.

They have real mobile devices in addition to emulators and simulators.
Another feature that separates it is the native experience, where you enjoy testing through the browsers with the help of DevTools.
They too seem to focus on selenium. They have a great automation grid which I found out to be fastest than the rest (by a very small margin).

Drawbacks:

The biggest drawback of Browserstack is the frustrating speed that sometimes gets on your nerves.
Support is not as fast as it should be. Considering the size of client base, I can understand the delays, but it’s still problematic sometimes.
Not offering any free plan, they sure charge a lot for single as well as parallel sessions.

Pricing - 29$ for 1 concurrent session 99$ for 2 concurrent session

Free plan - 30 minute trial of live testing time and 100 minutes of automation testing time. Would have to be upgraded once exhausted.

3. Sauce Labs

Being one of the leaders in the cross-browser market, Sauce Labs promises to increase test coverage while providing faster and more stable testing. While everything they promise seems almost perfect, the speed has issues.

Key features:

The selenium based cloud solution for automation problems is certainly helpful.
The state of the art mobile testing in Sauce Labs separates it from the rest.
They have a very clean UI for automation.

Drawbacks:

The virtual machines are really slow, at times.
Again the pricing seems to be unfair.

Pricing - 19$ for 1 concurrent session, for more you would have to contact support.

Free plan - Free Trial plan valid for 14 days. You get 2 concurrent sessions, 60 real-time testing minutes and 100 automation testing minutes.

4. Cross Browser Testing

This tool is genuinely underrated. CBT packs a punch when it comes to testing, with a cloud-supported test environment along with the automated screenshot and mobile emulators. I have been following them for some time and they have recently massively overhauled both their user experience and performance. They still have a long way to go.

Key features:

Selenium and Appium web testing.
Record and Replay, although the feature is still in beta stage it is going to be a turning point for CBT as the codeless automation will definitely simplify testing.

Drawbacks:

With popularity comes lag, such seems to be the case with all the following tools.

Pricing - 29$ for 1 concurrent session 100$ for 5 concurrent session

Free plan - No

5. Browserling

Browserling is like the indie version of all the above tools. It is not the fastest nor is it loaded with features like the rest, but it has a good VM speed and a good collection of browsers. I am a great fan of the man behind Browserling, Peter Krumins. He has a very great tech blog http://www.catonmat.net/ which also has a very huge collection of nifty and useful developer tools like converters, CSV tools, JSON tools, etc.

Key features:

Has a API that you can use to embed live interactive browsers in your application.
They can give you a customized solution suited specifically for your needs. (as per a testimonial on their site).

Drawbacks:

Don’t expect a lot of features on the platform.
While their VM speed is good, it is not the best.
The free trial is very limited. You can test on limited browser and os combination environments.
They don’t have a very large collection of browsers

Pricing - 19$ for 1 concurrent session

Free plan - Limited 3 minute sessions, Internet Explorer 9 only, Windows Vista only

Original Source: dzone.com