The Coolest Record and Playback Testing tool to start automating tests
Tags: opensource, testing
Published: 2023-09-27 06:33:49

## What Is Record and Playback Testing

Record and playback testing is regarded as a low-code method that automates software **testing without writing test scripts**. 

When you manually send requests on an application under test (AUT) in the production environment, such as a web application, the tool will capture these requests and automatically converts them into test cases.

You can then “replay” these requests in test environment to make sure that they function correctly after any changes have been made to the software.

## Advantages of Record and Playback Testing

- Record and playback testing **does not require knowledge of coding** or the ability to execute programming languages, making it accessible to users of all skill levels. Even individuals with no programming background, such as product managers, designers, marketers, and others, can participate in.
- It’s the easiest way for regression testing as it **greatly reduces the time and effort** needed to create test scripts. By recording requests as test cases, there may be no need to write or maintain a regression suite.
- Replaying online traffic can **perfectly simulate real user behavior**, avoiding the discrepancies that may happen in manual writing test cases.

## Challenges of Record and Playback Testing

- **Limited Functionality** – Most record and playback testing tools are unable to verify whether the functionality is correctly executed. They can only reuse recorded steps to create another test case for playback.
- **Troubleshooting** – Once a test played, if it failed, there was little information to help QA determine why it failed. Was it poorly written? Did it fail because of an element loaded slowly? Or was there actually a bug in the application?
- **Maintenance** – The recorded tests might easily become broken when your application changes frequently. Then you need to re-record the tests or update the test scripts manually, dropping your testing efficiency.
- **Restrictive** - The capabilities of most record and playback testing tools are limited to recording tests while performing manual actions on web pages. However, in reality, testing software involves more than just operations on a website.

## Choosing the right testing tool

Over the years, the record and playback testing method has not been widely used due to the failure of many tools to address the aforementioned challenges.

Despite facing initial challenges, record and playback testing has evolved into a more advanced and intelligent application testing tool with the help of modern tools.

AREX is an open-source automation test platform. It record real requests in the production environment and mock all requests to third-party dependencies with Java Agent bytecode injection technology, then replay the request and mock data in the test environment. Furthermore, it compares the recorded and replayed response messages, and lists the differences, allowing developers and testers to quickly troubleshoot.

![architecture diagram](http://arextest.com/assets/images/c1.multi.service-ddd6795e7a6bd8f1a3f0b37ca6a33c51.png)

With AREX, you can accelerate your testing processes and identify defects and errors earlier in the development cycle, which can ultimately save time and resources. As an open source tool, AREX is constantly evolving and improving thanks to contributions from its community of users.

![feature-img](http://arextest.com/img/feature-collapse/replay_report-light-en.png)

#### Low Cost

Low integration cost. No need to write test cases, while massive online requests can also ensure high coverage. Instrumentation code is simple enough for low performance loss.

#### Diversity validation[](http://arextest.com/docs/intro#diversity-support)

In addition to validating the returned responses from server, it also supports validation of data written to the service, validation of database, message queue, Redis data, and even validation of runtime in-memory data. 

![Diversity validation](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4r63ft6k6bj4onb7g8kj.png)

#### Intelligent Mock

Supports mocking for multiple popular technical frameworks, as well as local time and cache. This ensures accurate restoration of the production data environment during playback in testing environment.

![supported frameworks](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zhaewcjdhyagxsg5y3y8.png)

#### One-click debugging online problems in your local environment.

Due to configuration and data differences between the online and local environments, it is often challenging to reproduce online issues quickly in a local testing environment, making troubleshooting more difficult. With AREX, as all third-party dependencies can be mocked, it becomes convenient to debug locally.

![debug](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/gkn9r6f7yk0y8t7rc3k6.png)

#### Safe and stable

Safe: Desensitize the data for some sensitive information to protect of sensitive private data when recording the real traffic in the production environment.

Stable: Code isolation. Automatically reduce or turn off data collection during high system activity, which ensures that system stability is not affected.

Try AREX: http://arextest.com/docs/chapter1/quick-installation

---

Community⤵️
🐦 Follow us on Twitter
📝 Join AREX Slack
📧 Join the Mailing List