Software development practices change over the long run, so do the tools and technologies. Main aim of these changes is to improve productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, tackle ever-shorter delivery time and deploy successful products and services. Software testing plays an integral role to achieve these objectives. Each type of testing tests the product in a different way and functional testing is one of them and it should be done with the right tools. Before digging to the functional testing tools, let us see what is Functional testing.

What Is Functional Testing?

This is a type of testing that validates the software system against functional requirements/ specifications. Main purpose of functional tests is to test each function of software by providing appropriate input, verifying the output against functional requirements. It involves black box testing and checks user interface, APIs, Database, Security, Client/Server communication and other functionality of application under test. Functional testing can be done either manually or using automation.

Test result is just an observation of output compared with a requirement. Generally it can be expressed as a simple “pass” or “fail”. Functional testing tools may be triggered manually, but for quality assurance at speed, advanced functional testing tools provide automated testing.

Know the comparison of unit testing and functional testing at- Unit Testing Vs Functional Testing – Know The Comparison.

Types Of Functional Testing-

Unit testing of small unit code or single task within a software code. Generally Unit tests are automated.
Smoke testing or Sanity testing uncovers the failures that might make more detailed or advanced process testing impossible.
System testing works in concert within an integrated system to ensure together they behave in compliance with requirements.
Interface testing tests a product’s graphical user interface to ensure it meets specifications or that navigation works as designed.
Regression testing uncovers new bugs after patches or configuration changes have been made to a system.

Top 10 Functional Testing Tools-

1. UFT-
UFT(Unified Functional Testing) is a popular commercial testing tool for functional testing which provides a feature set for API, web services, and GUI testing of desktop, mobile and web applications across platforms. This tool has advanced image based object recognition feature, reusable test components and automated documentation. It makes use of a Visual Basic Scripting Edition to register testing process and object control. UTF is integrated with Mercury Business Process Testing and Mercury Quality Center. This tool supports CI through integration with CI tools like Jenkins. UFT got the highest views and followers on IT Central Station in the functional testing tools category.

2. Selenium-
It is a popular open-source automated testing suite for web apps. Selenium includes several components with which each performing a specific role in aiding the test automation. It supports various system environments and browsers. Also it provides a test domain-specific language to write tests in programming languages like PHP, Java, Perl, Groovy, Python, Ruby, Scala, C#. Testers have flexibility with Selenium and they can write complex and advanced test scripts to meet different level of complexity, it needs advanced programming skills and effort to build automation frameworks and libraries for particular testing needs.

3. Tricentis Tosca Testsuite-
It is an effective end to end functional testing tool with Latest version v9.0. It makes use of a modern model-based approach that is tested in Agiles method development. This tool creates test cases that are independent of software technologies and provides it in a business language that anyone can easily understand. So the test cases are created within less time and can be used as manual tests or automated test scripts. It has an effective approach in maintaining tests with recurring changes throughout the sprint cycles of Agile methods. It covers maximum business risks and can be easily maintained by non-technical users. Test module can be used for different technologies and platforms.

4. TestComplete-
Know more at- [https://solaceinfotech.com/blog/10-best-functional-testing-tools-for-2021/]