But before that…
What is Automation Testing?
Automation testing is the software testing technique using an automation tool to execute an automation test suite to identify the system’s defects. In this process, executing the test scripts, comparing the actual vs. excepted test result, capturing system test results, screenshots, and generating the automation results in detail are performed automatically by automation tools. Bottom line, you don’t have to struggle in testing applications manually or spending hours or days.
How Automation helps Business?
In many ways, some of them are following.
Saves time and money – automation testing is much faster in execution. Reusability of code – Automation Scripts needs to be created one time, and it can be executed multiple times with less or no maintenance. Easy reporting – generates automatic reports after test execution. Easy for compatibility testing – enables parallel execution in the combination of different OS and browser environments. Low-cost maintenance – cheaper compared to manual testing in the long run. Minimal manual intervention – test scripts can be run unattended without any manual intervention. Maximum coverage – helps to increase the testing coverage.
Automated testing is more reliable, powerful, and versatile. It is mostly used for regression testing as it supports the execution of repeated test cases. There is many open-source and commercial software testing software available in the market for test automation. In this article, I will list down some of the best automation tools (in no particular order) which are the most famous and widely used.
Selenium
Selenium is an open-source and probably the most popular web automation tool. Some of the amazing features are:
Selenium is an excellent tool for a purely web-based application with no setup or support cost. It can be easily customized to integrate with other tools like ALM, Bugzilla, etc. It supports different software languages Java C# Ruby Python Perl Php Javascript Javascript (Node JS) Haskell R Dart TCL Objective – C It supports almost all browsers. (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.) and hence, cross-browser testing/compatibility testing is easy.
If you are unsure how Selenium works, then check out this online course.
Katalon
Katalon is a free and interactive automation solution for API, Web, and Mobile testing and extends Selenium and Appium for test automation. This tool eliminates all the common challenges in web UI automation using its full package of powerful features. It also works on all major operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux. Some of the Key features of Katalon Studio are:
Very simple and easy to use GUI for creating automation test Easy to use and install, so any technical, as well as the non-technical user, can use it. Support for popular predefined automation framework with many inbuilt keywords, which reduces the effort to create a test from scratch. Support for Behavioral Driven Development (BDD) cucumber format. Built-in integration with popular CI tools like JIRA, Jenkins, GIT qTest, and Slack.
TestComplete
TestComplete is a functional automated UI testing platform designed by SmartBear Software. Using TestComplete, we can create automated functional and regression test suites for all major platforms like Microsoft Windows, Android, Web, desktop, and iOS applications. It has native support for the BDD framework, making test execution faster and easier for both technical and non-technical users. Some of the key features include:
Automated UI testing – Using its test record and playback feature, it enables you to easily collaborate and automate UI testing for any desktop, web, or mobile application. Keyword testing – in-built keyword-driven test editor that contains a list of keyword operations a user can perform hassle-free automated testing actions. Integration with Selenium – Selenium test scripts can be integrated with TestComplete to enhance test coverage significantly and significantly optimize testing efforts. Programming language support – it supports major popular programming languages like Python, JavaScript, VB Script, Delphi, etc. Distributed testing – execute several automated test cases across separate workstations, virtual machines, remote machines on different operating systems, and browsers. Test visualizer – provide quick test result comparison between expected and actual results. Automatically captures screenshot during recording and playback. Bug tracking integration – create or modify items stored in issue-tracking systems. It supports major bug tracking tools like Bugzilla and JIRA.
Micro Focus UFT
Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing ( formerly known as QuickTest Professional), popularly known by its acronym UFT is an automation functional testing tool initially developed by Mercury Interactive, later acquired by Hewlett Packard (HP) in 2006. UFT is widely used for functional, regression, and API (Web-Services) testing. Some of the features of UFT:
Its interactive UI is straightforward to use, navigate and provides capabilities of result validation and report generation. Using UFT, one does not require a highly skilled coder and is easy compared to other object-oriented programming languages. It can be easily integrated with other popular Test Management tools (Hp-Quality Center), enabling easy scheduling and monitoring. Online supports and HP dedicated support team is available for addressing any technical issues.
Tosca
Tosca is a software automation testing tool that is used to automate end-to-end testing. Tricentis develop it. Tosca supports multiple types of testing (test case design, test automation, test data design and generation, and analytics) along with automation to test GUI and API from a business perspective. It supports model-based, risk-based, load, performance testing.
WorkSoft
Worksoft Certify is test automation, which, along with traditional automation testing, also provides a platform focused on business process testing. Worksoft solution helps companies ensure business processes continue to function as designed even as changes are made to underlying applications. Worksoft uses its patented object action framework technology, eliminating traditional test coding, reducing test maintenance, and delivering reusable libraries of tests. You can use their GUI to create and manage the entire test. Highlights
Automates exploratory tests in real-time Provide support for API testing by leveraging existing SoapUI tests and virtual services Extract data automatically from SAP for testing Use over 300+ prebuilt SAP end-to-end testing scenarios
Appium
Appium is a free mobile automation testing tool. It can easily be integrated with Selenium web driver, making it a more preferred choice for mobile automation. It supports automation of hybrid, native, and mobile web applications built for both iOS and Android. Highlights
Write tests that can be run against different mobile platforms. Run test independently even without using a mobile device
Protractor
Protractor is an end-to-end testing framework that provides support for Angular applications. It runs tests against the application in a real browser, interacting with it as a user would. It is a node.js part of the webdriver.io, which is the JavaScript implementation of the Selenium framework. Highlights
Supports Angular-specific locator strategies including model, binding, repeater as well as native WebDriver locator strategies. Inbuilt support for waits and sleeps Supports cross-browser testing and behavior-driven development frameworks like Jasmine, Mocha, Cucumber, etc. Easy to set up popular design patterns like page objects in the protractor as it does not perform WebDriver commands until an action is needed.
SoapUI
SoapUI is one of the world’s leading open-source functional tools for REST and SOAP API testing. With its easy-to-use graphical interface (GUI) and enterprise-class features, Users can easily and rapidly create, maintain, and execute regression, automated functional, and load tests. Highlights
Simple, powerful, interactive, and easy to use GUI. It supports almost all types of testing, like functional, automation, and load. Supports for Data-Driven Tests Multi environment testing support Supports integration with all major CI Tools like Jenkins, TeamCity, Bamboo, etc.
Conclusion
I hope the above tools give you an idea about automating your application testing. Most of them are free, so see which one works best with your application. Next, find out how you can perform cross-browser testing.
