As software development continue to shape the world by playing a critical role in decision making, automation testing is an important concept in the software development process that can never be overlooked.
Automated testing is the application of software tools to automate a human-driven manual process of reviewing and validating a software product. In a lame man language, Automation testing is using software to test another software.
Most modern agile and DevOps software projects now include automated testing from inception.
To ensure smooth testing, various automation testing tools have been made available. Automation testing tools will execute repetitive test cases, pinpoint defects, and ensure software reliability. Their attributes have seen them become indispensable assets throughout the software development lifecycle.
While numerous automation testing tools exist, your business needs may necessitate a tool with tailored features and solutions.
In this article, we will shed light on best tools for automation testing, their functionalities, advantages, and the pivotal role they play in upholding software quality.
Let’s start.
BEST TOOLS FOR AUTOMATION TESTING
Selenium
The most popular and widely used tool among the various automation testing software list is Selenium.
Selenium is an open-source suite of tools and libraries to test different web applications. It’s widely used by quality analysts across the globe due to its customizable test automation availability in different languages and browsers.
Features of Selenium
- Selenium lets you test your web applications across browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari and operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Selenium offers functionality beyond just clicking buttons and filling out forms. You can use it for web scraping to programmatically extract data from websites.
- Selenium can handle large and complex test suites, making it suitable for various testing needs.
- Unlike many automation testing tools, Selenium doesn’t limit you to a specific language. It provides bindings for popular options like Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, and Ruby. This allow you to choose the language you’re most comfortable with for your project.
Postman
Postman is one of the most widely used automation testing tools for API. It allows users to write different kinds of tests, from functional and integration to regression tests, and execute them automatically in CI/CD pipelines via the command line.
Notable Features of Postman
- Friendly and easy-to-use interface equipped with code snippets
- Support for multiple HTML methods, Swagger, and RAML formats
- Broad support for API schemas to generate collections and API elements
- Test suite creation, executions with parameterization, and debugging
- Integrations with popular CI/CD tools
Telerik Test Studio
Telerik Test Studio is a user-friendly testing platform used for web, desktop, and mobile application testing. While its drag-and-drop functionality simplifies test creation, Telerik Test Studio struggles to scale effectively, especially when handling complex, large-scale test scenarios.
Notable Features of Telerik Test Studio
- With its intuitive interface, Telerik Test Studio simplifies test creation with drag-and-drop functionality, enhancing productivity.
- It offer cross-platform support, this ensures consistent testing across web, desktop, and mobile applications.
- Telerik Test Studio promotes seamless integration for developers using Visual Studio, enhancing collaboration.
- It streamlines bug management within the testing workflow, improving efficiency.
Appium
Appium is also an open-source automation testing tool, but for mobile applications. Using mobile JSON wire protocol, Appium allows users to write automated UI tests for native, web-based, and hybrid mobile applications on both Android and iOS.
Features of Appium
- Supports multiple programming languages such as Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Perl
- Cross-platform testing with reusable test scripts and the same APIs
- Execution across real devices, simulators, and emulators
- Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools
Cypress
A new test automation tool for front-end developers, Cypress is written in JavaScript and built on WebDriver and Node.js, Cypress tests run in any modern browser. It’s fast, reliable, and simple to use. Cypress is also open source.
Features of Cypress
- Installing Cypress is simple, with no extra dependencies required.
- It offers real-time support where you can write the test when the application is being built.
- No network lags and real-time reloads where you can automatically trigger and run your test once you save it.
- You can quickly get the test snapshots right from the command log.
BrowserStack
BrowserStack is an industry-leading test platform that offers automated web testing, mobile app testing, visual regression testing, automated accessibility testing, and low-code automation.
Software development teams can use BrowserStack Automate or App Automate to integrate web and mobile testing frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Appium, Flutter, Detox, or Playwright.
Notable Features of BrowserStack
- Offers the most advanced visual testing algorithm with Percy
Offers accessibility testing, test case management, and in-built test reporting tools
- Test app frontend performance with metrics such as FPS, ANR rate, App & page loading times
- No setup or maintenance needed
- Instant access to latest and legacy Android and iOS devices
Playwright
Playwright is another popular framework among the top software testing automation tools list, a test automation library developed proudly by Microsoft’s contributors, and it is another open-source favorite among a large audience.
It uses a Node.js library for automating Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit browsers using a single API.
Notable Features of Playwright
- It’s quite easy to configure and set up.
- Get multi-browser support for Firefox, Edge, Chrome, and Safari.
- It’s backed up with the support of Java, JavaScript, Typescript, Python, and C#.
- Enable the capabilities of parallel browser testing.
- Make the most out of multiple browsers/tabs.
Puppeteer
A browser-driven framework, puppeteer is a Node library offering high-level API to control Chromium or headless Chrome with the DevTools Protocol. When performing Puppeteer testing, every programmer can easily interact with any web browser using methods such as .type() or .goto().
The maintenance is taken care of by the Chrome DevTools team.
Features of Puppeteer
- Get thorough Chrome support.
- Automate UI testing, form submission, keyboard input, etc.
- Access web scraping to extract content and data immediately.
- Conduct screenshot testing and save PDFs of pages.
- Measure load time via the Chrome Performance Analysis tool.
TestComplete
TestComplete can automate functional UI testing for desktop, mobile, and web applications. With built-in support for 500+ controls and third-party frameworks, TestComplete can handle and identify dynamic UI elements in most available technologies.
Features of TestComplete
- Supports multiple programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, Delphi, C++, C#
- Flexible methods for test design
- Object identification with property-based and AI visual recognition
- Parallel, cross-browser, and cross-device testing
- Integrations with other testing frameworks, CI/CD tools, and SmartBear ecosystem
Perfecto
Perfecto is a cloud-based and automated testing platform for web and mobile applications. From automated cross-environment executions, custom capabilities, test analysis, and broad integrations, Perfecto makes continuous testing more achievable for DevOps teams.
Features of Perfecto
- Scriptless test creation for UI web applications
- Real-user stimulation for mobile testing: network visualization and other environmental conditions
- Parallel and cross-platform executions
- Advanced test analytics with centralized dashboard and AI noise filtering
- Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools
SoapUI
This open-source API testing tool is designed for REST and SOAP web services. Some vital features include automated functional, performance, regression, and security testing. Users can also aim for the commercial version, ReadyAPI (formerly SoapUI Pro), for more advanced capabilities.
Notable Feature of SoapUI
- Drag and drop to create tests, even with complex scenarios
- Service stimulation to reduce efforts of building production systems for testing
- Quick and easy test script reusability
- More protocol support, capabilities, and CI/CD integration with ReadyAPI
Tricentis Tosca
Tricentis Tosca is a comprehensive automation tool for web, API, mobile, and desktop testing. It has a unique model-based testing approach, allowing users to scan an application’s UI or APIs to create a business-familiar model for test creation and maintenance.
Notable Feature of Tricentis Tosca
- Codeless test creation and high reusability of test assets with the model-based approach
- Risk-based test optimization with smart test design and requirement prioritization
- Service virtualization to stimulate and build realistic testing environments
- API scanning with extensive support for API technologies
- Parallel and cross-platform testing
- Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools
WebdriverIO
The WebdriverIO tool has been built to automate modern-age web and mobile applications. This end-to-end testing tool belongs to the OpenJS foundation. It can also test JavaScript/TypeScript Node.js applications.
We can use WebdriverIO with WebDriver Protocol since it has many top features, such as cross browser testing.
Notable Features of WebdriverIO
- Easy installation and setup.
- It’s quite a robust, scalable, flexible, and stable framework.
- Access community plugins and built-in tools to extend your setup as per your needs and requirements.
- Get native mobile app testing support.
Takeaway
Best tools for automation testing have been discussed in this article. Choosing the right testing tool for your software depends on what you are working on. You should have a great understanding of what you are testing, what your testing strategy is, and how advanced your testing background is, an answer to these questions will help you choose the right automation testing tool.
Automation testing tools is rarely about popularity, it’s about effectiveness and accuracy. When choosing a testing tool, you should also consider their ease of use, customer support and technology compatibility. These considerations ensure that you can gain the maximum adoption for your tool, scale your automation and get a quick return of investment on your tool.
