Top 5 Test Automation Tools

Tags: testing, agile
Published: 2020-03-06 08:55:18

In this blog post, we bring you the top-rated test automation tools in the market. Further, you will read about the criteria for automated testing tool selection and comparison. Read on to find out the capabilities that are a must when choosing your test automation tool.

Top Test Automation Tools for 2020
QMetry Automation Studio

QMetry Automation Studio uses open source automation frameworks like Selenium and Appium to get structure, efficiency and reusability to your automated testing efforts. It enables advanced automation with coded automation and enables manual testers to adopt automated testing easily.

Its key features include:

Unique tool for UI and Visual component validation using automated testing
Enables multi-platform automated testing across web, web services/APIs and mobile devices.
Uses principles of BDD and TDD to support everyone in the organization
Streamlines object spying and repository management for robust automated testing
Comprehensive reports and dashboards for insightful and informed automated testing
Web recording of session enabled with chrome add-on and conversion of steps to automated scenario
Support for multiple frameworks, ALM Integrations and plug-ins to scale your automated testing.
Selenium

Selenium is almost synonymous with automated testing. Selenium offers flexibility and features that are incomparable with other test automation tools and frameworks. Users can write scripts in several different languages, supported on multiple systems and browsers.

However, to make the most of Selenium, users must have advanced programming skills and must invest time in building automation frameworks and libraries required for automation.

Open-source, free to use and free of charge
Extensible
Works with all major languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, Ruby etc.
Support for multiple operating systems
Support across different browsers and mobile devices
Parallel test execution
Integration with Maven, Jenkins or Docker for continuous testing
Supports integration with tools such as TestNG and Junit for managing test cases and reports
Mabl

Mabl offers script less, end-to-end automation with CI/CD pipeline integration. It uses proprietary machine learning models to identify and find application issues quickly. Here are its key features:

Self-maintaining tests that adapt to UI changes automatically
Comprehensive test output that shows step-by-step execution details
Supports visual application testing and catches unexpected errors in your UI
Performance regression testing
Cross browser testing
Parallel parametrization of test data
Extends existing CI/CD tools with integrations
Ranorex Studio

Ranorex is a powerful GUI-based test automation framework. Ranorex can be used for the testing of web-based, desktop and mobile applications. It uses standard programming languages such as VB.NET and C#.

Ranorex can be used to automate any desktop, web-based or mobile application and supports many technologies such as .Net, Silverlight, Winforms, Java, SAP, WPF etc.

Selenium web driver integration
Automating tests in Selenium with Ranorex
End-to-end testing of web, mobile and desktop
Supports both coded and codeless tests
Provides a full IDE with tools for debugging, refactoring, intelligent code completion
Katalon studio

Katalon is a powerful test automation solution that helps teams to quickly generate automated tests across platforms. It integrates automated tests into your CI/CD pipeline and provides centralized reports and quality metrics for better decisions.

Built-in Data Driven framework
Built-in features to execute test scripts in multiple browsers parallelly or sequentially without coding
Testing and Exception handling
Easy API testing
Rich reporting framework
Ease of logging and debugging
Native integrations with ALM, Jira and various test management tools and CI tools
Easily automates dynamic UI & frequently changing content with ease
How to select a test automation tool? Even when you have shortlisted a few favorites, it can be confusing to select the right test automation tool. How do you select the one that’s right for your automation needs?

Here are some questions that will help you:

What do you want from my test automation tool?
Budget
Does the tool match the project environment and tech stack you are using?
Is there a free trial version so that you can try before you buy?
Is the vendor company well-known with reliable customer support, resources and user manual?
What is the learning curve involved? Does it match your delivery goals?
What is the coding language support and does it match the languages you use?
Does the tool have an easy UI to create and maintain test scripts? Does it have a record and playback tool with abilities to edit recorded scripts?
Does it provide a powerful reporting feature and dashboard?
Some FAQs about test automation

Can test automation replace manual testing?
While there is plenty of scare mongering about QAs losing their jobs to automation and the end of the QA role, the truth is that test automation can’t and won’t ever fully replace manual testing. Sure, there are repetitive and boring manual testing tasks that are ideal for test automation. For one, usability testing can’t be automated. Secondly, automated testing can only test what is predictable. For specific testing types such as exploratory testing, test automation can’t be used.

Does automation testing require coding?
There are parts of automation that don’t require scripting and scriptless automation has become quite the rage. Yet, it is beneficial for manual testers who are trying to break into test automation to learn a programming language. A simpler analogy for this is: Everyone should know how to code just as everyone must learn how to read and write, even if we may not all be authors.

When should you use automation testing?
Automation testing is ideal for some testing scenarios such as:

When you have highly repeatable test cases within a test cycle
When the test cases are highly laborious and time-intensive and you can’t do them manually.
When you need to simulate various configurations on various web browsers.
When you want to increase the depth and scope of test to improve the software quality.
When you are carrying out regression testing.
Test automation can save a lot of time and enhance efficiency. It is also very accurate.
What are some of the metrics for measure the ROI of Test Automation tools?
While each organization has their own parameters for the ROI of test automation tools, the following metrics can help you evaluate the ROI:

The success rate for the deployment

Total error rates for each phase
Criteria for Automation improvement
Technical debt
Find out more about the metrics for test automation success in this blog post.

6. Is Test automation necessary for DevOps success?

You can’t really have DevOps without a continuous delivery pipeline and this requires test automation to enable continuous testing. The modern delivery cadence with incremental features and version updates for customer satisfaction demands frequent releases, a strong regression suite and zero production defects. This is not possible without test automation.

As organizations fast-track their deployment in their bid to digitally transform, test automation remains the key weapon in their arsenal to achieve high quality with speed. Doing test automation right is one of the key indicators of a mature DevOps operation and the role of test automation tools can’t be undermined. Here’s wishing you select the best test automation tool in 2020.