Top Automation Testing Tools
Software
development practices change over time, so do the tools and
technologies. Such changes aim to improve productivity, quality,
customer satisfaction, to tackle ever-shorten delivery time, and to
deliver successful products and services. Software testing obviously
plays an important role in achieving these objectives.
The recently released World Quality Report 2017–2018 by Capgemini, Sogeti, and Micro Focus points out several interesting trends in software quality and testing. Two of three key trends are increasing test automation and widespread adoption of agile and DevOps methodologies.
As the report shows, organizations need intelligent automation and
smart analytics to speed up decision making and validation and to better
address the challenges of testing smarter devices and products that are
highly integrated and continuously changing. The report also suggests
the need of smart test platforms that are self-aware and self-adaptive
to support the complete application lifecycle.
In
the test automation landscape, automation tools certainly take a center
stage. This post summarizes the top test automation tools and
frameworks that have the potential to help organizations to best
position themselves to keep pace with the trends in software testing.
The list includes both open-source and commercial test automation
solutions.
- Selenium
Selenium
is possibly the most popular open-source test automation framework for
Web applications. Being originated in the 2000s and evolved over a
decade, Selenium has been an automation framework of choice for Web
automation testers, especially for those who possess advanced
programming and scripting skills. Selenium has become a core framework
for other open-source test automation tools such as Katalon Studio,
Watir, Protractor, and Robot Framework.
Selenium
supports multiple system environments (Windows, Mac, Linux) and
browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Headless browsers). Its scripts can
be written in various programming languages such as Java, Groovy,
Python, C#, PHP, Ruby, and Perl.
While
testers have flexibility with Selenium and they can write complex and
advanced test scripts to meet various levels of complexity, it requires
advanced programming skills and effort to build automation frameworks
and libraries for specific testing needs.
Website: http://www.seleniumhq.org/
License: Open-source
2. Katalon Studio
Katalon
Studio is a powerful test automation solution for web application,
mobile, and web services. Being built on top of the Selenium and Appium
frameworks, Katalon Studio takes advantage of these solutions for
integrated software automation.
The
tool supports different levels of testing skill set. Non-programmers
can find it easy to start an automation testing project (like using
Object Spy to record test scripts) while programmers and advanced
automation testers can save time from building new libraries and
maintaining their scripts.
Katalon
Studio can be integrated into CI/CD processes and works well with
popular tools in the QA process including qTest, JIRA, Jenkins, and Git.
It offers a nice feature called Katalon Analytics which provides users comprehensive views of test execution reports via dashboard including metrics, charts, and graphs.
Website: https://www.katalon.com/
License: Free
3. UFT
Unified
Functional Testing (UFT) is a well-known commercial testing tool for
functional testing. It provides a comprehensive feature set for API, web
services, and GUI testing of desktop, web, and mobile applications
across platforms. The tool has advanced image-based object recognition
feature, reusable test components, and automated documentation.
UFT
uses Visual Basic Scripting Edition to register testing processes and
object control. UFT is integrated with Mercury Business Process Testing
and Mercury Quality Center. The tool supports CI via integration with CI
tools such as Jenkins.
License: Commercial
4. Watir
Watir
is an open-source testing tool for web automation testing based on Ruby
libraries. Watir supports cross browser testing including Firefox,
Opera, headless browser, and IE. It also supports data-driven testing
and integrates with BBD tools like RSpec, Cucumber, and Test/Unit.
Website: http://watir.com/
License: Open-source
5. IBM Rational Functional Tester
IBM
RFT is a data-driven testing platform for functional and regression
testing. It supports a wide range of application such as .Net, Java,
SAP, Flex, and Ajax. RFT uses Visual Basic .Net and Java as scripting
languages. RFT has a unique feature called Storyboard testing in which
users’ actions on AUT are recorded and visualized in a storyboard format
through application screenshots.
Another
interesting feature of RFT is its integration with IBM Jazz application
lifecycle management systems such as IBM Rational Team Concert and
Rational Quality Manager.
Website: https://www.ibm.com/
License: Commercial
6. TestComplete
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