Automation Testing is a buzzword in the Software Industry. The trend is to automate every repetitive and similar kind of work. Time has gone by since testing software used to take a lot of time and resources. As Agile methodologies globally opted for Software development, Automation testing plays a vital role in delivering products within time without compromising quality.
We have so many Automation tools available in the market to perform automation testing. Automation tools help you to do most of the automation testing effectively and efficiently. In this blog post, we will see the top Automation testing tools used in the software industry. They are:
- Selenium
- Ranorex
- Silk Test
- TestComplete
- QTP (UFT)
- TestRigor
- Appium
- Cucumber
- IBM Rational Functional Tester (RFT)
- Cypress
Let’s see each of them in detail:
1. Selenium
Selenium is a set of tools to automate web applications across different browsers and platforms. Selenium WebDriver is the most used tool currently. Selenium WebDriver can be used with multiple language bindings to create robust, browser-based regression automation suites and tests. It can not be used for Desktop based applications.
- It is a free set of tools to automate web browsers or web-based applications.
- It consists of Selenium IDE, Selenium RC, Selenium WebDriver and Selenium GRID.
- Selenium IDE provides Record and Play GUI tests only for Web-based applications on Chrome and Firefox browsers only.
- A webDriver-based tool called Appium can be used for mobile applications.
- Supports cross-browser testing.
- Supports major operating systems:- Windows, Linux, and Mac.
- Can use Selenium API with programming languages like Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Perl PHP, Javascript, R, etc.
- Supports IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Headless browsers
- Selenium IDE provides Record and Play GUI tests only for Web-based applications on Chrome and Firefox browsers only
- Easy integration with various reporting tools.
- Support integration with CICD.
2. Ranorex
Ranorex is a set of paid and free tools to build sophisticated tests for desktop, web, and mobile applications. They provide three tools:-
Ranorex Studio:
- It is an IDE-based set of tools that provides codeless automation.
- It provides End-to-end testing of desktop, web and mobile applications in a single license.
- We can automate tests on a Windows desktop, and then execute them locally or remotely, on real iOS or Android mobile devices or simulators/emulators.
- It supports the parallel running of tests.
- It has a built-in Selenium WebDriver.
- Supports Cross-browser testing.
Ranorex Webtestit:
- A lightweight IDE optimized for building UI web tests with Selenium or Protractor
- It generates native Selenium and Protractor code in Java and Typescript respectively.
- Follows Page Object Model design pattern.
- Supports Cross-browser testing on platforms like Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android mobile devices.
- Built-in reporting.
- Easy integration with JIRA and TestRail
- Supports a headless browser. We can distribute tests on Selenium grid and cloud-based providers like Saucelabs.
- Easy setup of tests framework.
- Downloads browser drivers automatically.
Ranorex Selocity:-
- It is a free Chrome browser extension to generate Selenium CSS selectors as well as XPath selectors
- It generates a smart selector by ignoring dynamically generated IDs.
- Auto-detects the selector type highlights it and then displays the number of matching DOM elements.
3. Silk Test
Silk Test is an automation paid tool provided by Micro Focus for web, mobile, rich-client, and Enterprise applications. We can run existing selenium scripts faster using Silk Test. It can be easily integrated with CICD for continuous testing.
- Suitable for web, mobile, rich-client, and Enterprise applications.
- Supports both Web and mobile browsers
- Supports Running and adding new tests to existing Selenium scripts
- The built-in Synchronization mechanism helps you to remove unnecessary wait statements.
- Supports regression, cross-platform, and localization testing of all mobile application types such as mobile web, native and hybrid applications.
- It has embedded back-end service virtualization to simulate service behavior in order to save time and effort.
- Supports running tests as performance tests and for synthetic monitoring purposes as well.
- Easy to integrate with CICD and Docker
- Customized graphical report
4. TestComplete
It is a paid automation testing tool to create automated functional tests for desktop, web, and mobile applications. This tool is developed by SmartBear software. It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) which makes it a robust tool.
- It can be used to create automated functional tests for desktop, web, and mobile applications.
- It is a Windows-based tool. TestComplete is essentially a Windows-based application and thus cannot run on Linux/Unix systems.
- It also has native support for Behavioral Driven Development (BDD).
- This tool is said to be very easy to use with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
- Its object recognition combines property-based and AI-powered visual recognition to find dynamic UI elements quickly, easily, and accurately.
- It makes fast and easy to create, maintain, and execute functional tests which will increase test coverage and ensure you ship high-quality, battle-tested software.
- It has an unmatched hybrid object recognition engine with artificial intelligence.
- It is also called a Script or Scriptless tool. The reason behind this is that if you want to script, you can use as of now seven different languages (JavaScript, Python, VBScript, Jscript, DelphiScript, C#, and C+). If you do not want to script, you can use a record-and-play feature of it.
- It is a paid tool by SmartBear. You can bundle options or customize your order.
- It supports seven different languages including JavaScript, Python, VBScript, Jscript, DelphiScript, C#, and C+.
- You can test web applications developed with any programming language, server-side technology, and frameworks including HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTML5, etc.
- With TestComplete, you can get real-time information on the progress and status of your desktop, mobile, or web functional GUI tests from a single interface.
- The tool enables you to share images, videos, or detailed logs that you captured during test execution, or even export your logs in multiple formats such as JUnit, HTML or MHT, to easily share details with other team members.
5. QTP (UFT)
UFT is formerly known as QTP. UFT is a paid desktop-based automation tool for web, desktop, mobile, API, hybrid, RPA, and enterprise apps provided by Micro Focus. It is a very old and powerful automation tool. It can be used to automate all three layers of an application. With very less knowledge of programming, you can use this tool easily.
- It is a paid desktop-based Intelligent test automation tool for web, mobile, API, hybrid, RPA, and enterprise apps provided by Micro Focus.
- UFT provides functional, regression and API test automation for software applications and environments for enterprise quality assurance. We can test all three layers of an application interface, the service layer and the database layer from a single console of UFT as it provides a graphical user interface.
- We can automate actions performed by an end-user on a web-based or desktop application using UFT. We can simulate user actions like clicking on GUI elements of applications, entering keyboard inputs and much more. In fact, UFT can do it much faster than humans if scripted efficiently.
- It supports the VBS (Visual Basic Script) programming language.
- It supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, and Edge web browsers.
- A major disadvantage of UFT is that it supports only Microsoft Windows operating systems.
- It supports nearly every major software application and environment, including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, mainframes, embedded frameworks, headless browsers, and much more.
- We can deploy UFT on provisioned Citrix, AWS, and Azure virtual environments, or run web and mobile tests from Docker containers.
- You required less knowledge of programming as it offers keyword-driven testing that simplifies test creation and maintenance. Capture flows directly from the application screens and leverage UFT’s robust record/replay capturing technology.
- It comes with a built-in Object Repository and Provides built-in support for Data-driven Testing by Data tables.
6. TestRigor
TestRigor is one of the best-automated performance testing tools used by QA testers. It helps create complex tests with basic English language commands in a specific end-to-end format. The tool is easy to use and facilitates fast creation. Additionally, its execution process is considerably quicker, thanks to the advanced AI integration.
The seamless integration of this automation testing tool with CI/CD pipelines makes creating extremely complex automated tests easy without writing a single code line. In addition, due to its cross-platform and cross-browsing features, it also works on desktop, web, mobile, and API testing.
Top Features of TestRigor:
The test process of this automation testing tool can function programmatically and needs validation, making it easy for people from non-technology backgrounds.
It is stable enough to be used in CI/CD and requires as little maintenance as possible.
The tool is independent and can perform parallel with other automation tests.
7. Appium
Appium is another leading open-source automation testing tool designed for mobile applications in both iOS and Android. It is built based on server architecture and vendor-provided automation frameworks. Simple to set up and use, Appium has gained popularity as one of the best mobile automation testing tools. The tool boasts stability, maximum flexibility, and advanced features.
The greatest aspect of this automation testing tool is that it allows QA testers to automate mobile apps from any programming language or framework. It means the developers can use their preferred options among PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Python C#, and more. Another exciting feature of Appium is that it allows remote testing capability on multiple teams worldwide to perform tests collaboratively.
Top Features of Appium:
Does not require SDK or recompiling of the app for native testing apps
Suitable for iOS, Android, and Windows using the protocol of WebDriver
You can test this automation testing tool across numerous combinations of devices and operating systems.
8. Cucumber
Cucumber is another open-source load testing tool designed based on the philosophy of delivering an improved end-user experience. As a behavioral-driven development (BDD) element, it is perfect for QA testers wanting validation in an easily understandable and plain format.
Despite the technical coding knowledge and relevant experience, around 20% of professionals use this automation testing tool. It helps empower team collaboration by leveraging Jira and reports in HTML AND JSON formation to monitor the performance of every team member.
Top Features of Cucumber:
This automation testing tool can execute code on various frameworks, such as selenium.
Test code is available in a simple English language called Gherkin.
The performance tool supports languages like Java, Scala, Groovy, Ruby, and more.
9. IBM Rational Functional Tester (RFT)
IBM Rational Functional Tester is an automation testing tool for functional, regression, and GUI testing used for simple test management. It is designed using pure Java and benefits the QA team utilizing .Net, Java, and C# in their project lifecycle.
With this tool, you can create and plan test data for manual testers and test cases for the automated process. Moreover, it is compatible with various development frameworks and has two scripting languages - Java and VB. Net.
Top Features of RFT:
The tool simplifies the test process by visualizing and editing rendered screenshots.
It offers innovative and intelligent script-maintaining facilities for successfully automating functional and regression testing.
It is suitable for integration with Jenkins, Quick Test, and Apache Maven.
10. Cypress
Cypress is a developer-centric end-to-end testing tool for QA testers who want to operate modern JavaScript frameworks. The tool works specifically well with the project and is built using modern frameworks such as Angular, Vue, and React. Moreover, it can also work with server-rendered mobile applications.
This open-source performance testing tool is well-known for its comprehensive and in-depth documentation, including libraries. Besides parallel test features, Cypress enables the interception of network traffic. It also resembles application code, which is not easily found in other automation tools. It further offers an intuitive dashboard to unveil effective next-level insights through videos and screenshots.
Top Features of Cypress:
Has DOM manipulation and shadow DOM, which can create powerful end-to-end testing solutions with fast creation and execution.
Designed with excellent documentation and supports Javascript tools.
Control over server response, timers, network traffic, and function behavior with CI/CD integration.
Comparison of the Top 5 Automation Tools
| Basis | Selenium | QTP | TestComplete | Ranorex | Silk Test |
|---|
| Suitable For | Web, mobile (Appium) applications | Desktop, web and mobile applications | Desktop, web and mobile applications | Desktop, web and mobile applications | Web and mobile applications |
| Cost | Free | Paid | Paid | Paid | Paid |
| Supported OS | Windows, Linux, Mac | Windows | Windows | Windows | Windows |
| Supported Languages | Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Perl PHP, Javascript, R | Visual Basic Script | JavaScript, Python, VBScript, Jscript, DelphiScript, C#, and C+ | Java, TypeScript | 4Test |
| Features | Need to integrate other tools for better utilization | All required tools are inbuilt | All required tools are inbuilt | All required tools are inbuilt | All required tools are inbuilt |
| CICD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Programming Knowledge | More | Less | Less | Less | Less |
| Career | More opportunities | Less | Less | Less | Less |
How to Select an AutomationTool
There are many tools available in the market that do similar things. So it becomes very difficult to select an appropriate tool for your project requirement. You need to select a tool based on the below criteria:-
- Budget of project
- ROI from Automation
- Scope and roadmap of the project
- Resources available
- Level of maintenance and programming skills
If you do not want any paid tool, then Selenium is the best tool for you. All four tools are good if you want to go for a paid tool. You can select based on your budget, and the criteria are given above.
Selenium and UFT tools are better for learning from career aspects. Selenium is an open-source tool that makes it famous for to use for automation across different organizations. Selenium is a widely used automation tool as of now. Since UFT is an old and powerful automation tool, and many organizations have their automation suite in UFT.
Conclusion
Agile and DevOps manifest the software testing standard. However, preparing a clear-cut evaluation strategy on automation testing tools is key for the software development process. Learning about such software testing tools from KnowledgeHut will help you build and scale from the ground up for creating, running, and maintaining centralized results effortlessly.
Every individual wishes to enjoy an error and defect-free software application in the digital, fast-paced era. However, you must consider your team's needs, human resources, and future scalability before selecting an automation testing tool.
