Automated-Testing means the use of software tools to automate the tasks associated with validating and reviewing a software. These tools help to perform manual or repetitive tasks which are usually performed by a manual tester. There are numerous automation tools available in the market which performs these repetitive tasks and maximizes the quality of a software and also helps in reducing the number of errors in a software. The major reason why software companies adopt automated testing is that it saves a lot of time, effort and money. The following tools are the top 10 for automated front end testing tools in the year 2023.
Top 10 tools for Automated Front-End Testing in 2023
Cypress
Cypress is an open-source front-end testing tool, which is free of cost and can be locally installed. It has a Test Runner and a Dashboard Service and the tools also assist you in recording your tests. Cypress is a trending frontend test automation tool built inorder to test next-generation of modern web applications. It is helpful for QA testers as well as developers to test real applications developed in Vue.js, Angular.js, Node.js, React.js, etc. Cypress has the ability to run tests in various browsers such as Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and Electron. Many applications including Selenium operate by running outside the browser & executing commands across the network. Cypress does the opposite and is executed in the same loop as the application.
Selenium
Selenium is the oldest test automation framework so it’s still widely used even in 2023. It’s an open-source testing tool that automates browsers. That means it’s free to use but the only support you are offered is through the online community chat and written documentation. Moreover, you may have to pair it with another open-source or paid tool to run more than one test at a time. Selenium IDE is a feature offered by Selenium which is a record and playback feature and it also offers WebDriver which helps to connect to various testing language libraries. With the Selenium WebDriver, you can use programming languages such as Ruby, Java, Python, and more. By using the Selenium framework, QA engineers are able to deliver test cycles with more speed by automating repetitive test cases. When Selenium is integrated with CI/CD pipeline, it helps with a strong, error-free release deployment pipeline.
TestComplete
TestComplete is a front-end testing tool by SmartBear. It is a record and playback tool that uses Python, JavaScript & VBScript. They support software testing on desktop, web & mobile platforms, including both iOS and Android Operating System. This tool provides a library of code for most commonly used actions. We can choose these commonly used actions from a dropdown list and the code for that particular action will be automatically inserted into the test. TestComplete also provides an object recognition engine that allows us to test elements inside a PDF or a chart.
ACCELQ
ACCELQ is an Artificial Intelligence powered Codeless Test-Automation platform (on the cloud). This tool easily automates API, Web UI, Mobile, and Desktop. It is a continuous testing platform for API and functional testing. Accelq is available both on SAAS and on -premise models.
Some of the main features of this tool are as follows:
- Action word testing
- Bug tracking
- Security testing
- Test case tracking
- Test run tracking
- Test library maintenance
- Test script review
- Document storage
- Model based testing
- Activity Dashboard
Applitools
Applitools is an Artificial-Intelligence assisted visual and monitoring platform. The Applitools plugin supports over 40 application testing frameworks and languages, which means we can use it with most test runners. This tool takes a screenshot of the entire User Interface wherever we insert instructions to do so and helps you select between 4 levels of sensitivity : strict, exact, content, or layout. Applitools decreases manual work across the testing process like analysis, test creation, maintenance & execution. Since Applitools is a Visual AI, the problems of test coverage are completely removed. Applitools will validate all elements of a UI, including text, images, layouts, videos, etc. without the need for the team to spend numerous hours writing tests.
Katalon
Katalon Studio is a test automation tool which is trending in 2023 that leverages Selenium’s core engine. Despite the fact that it uses numerous Selenium’s functionality, this tool is not simply a Selenium wrapper. It offers a great graphical UI with menus, tree views, tables to manage test cases, objects and data files. This tool uses Groovy, a language built on top of Java, and it has to load several libraries for parsing test-data, test-objects, logging. So, it may be somewhat slower when compared to Java for long test cases with numerous steps.
Ranorex
Ranorex Studio supports a combination of using record-and-playback and choosing drag-and-drop actions from a pre-set list or repository to write test scripts. It is a very powerful test automation tool for desktop, web and mobile applications. Ranorex Studio can be used by anyone including non-coders to record automation tests step-by-step. You can record a video of a test run. However, you’ll have to select this setting manually, and Ranorex only saves the most recent test videos. Finally, Ranorex tests are done on real devices—either on local devices or remote Ranorex devices. Ranorex supports all technologies like Java, .Net, Flex, HTML and can be useful for different browsers such as IE, Chrome, Firefox and mobile applications (Android, iOS).
Micro Focus UFT
Micro Focus UFT tool automates functional testing using an intuitive, visual user experience which ties automated software testing, manual testing & framework based testing together in one IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The features in Micro Focus UFT assists us to significantly minimize the time spent, cost and complexity of the functional testing process while accelerating continuous quality. This tool has proven features for meeting the challenges of today’s agile teams.
PhantomCSS
PhantomCSS is a Node.js tool to carry out visual regression testing. It is an open source tool and it allows you to run a headless browser, open a page and also allows you to take a screenshot of the entire page or a specific element on the page. The screenshot will be stored as a baseline image for future reference. Whenever we change anything on the website, we can run PhantomCSS again. It will take another screenshot and compare this to the original image. If there are no changes, the test will pass. If, on the contrary, the screenshots don’t match, the test will fail and the creation of a new image will be there for us to review. This feature makes this tool apt for testing changes in CSS.
Squish
Squish is an easy to use tool for automation testing. It is lightweight and has plenty of features that help in testing and even has support for multiple languages which makes it very convenient for testers. Squish supports a large number of technologies like Android, Web/HTML/Ajax, Qt, QML,Java AWT/Swing, etc. It also supports integration testing for BDD, IDE, test recording, CI system & Test management.
Conclusion
The above mentioned tools are the ones which are trending in 2023 and there are many more tools and frameworks which are available and which offer plenty of features. Another trend which is visible in 2023 is the introduction of Artificial – Intelligence based automated front-end tools. As a QA, it has now become easier to choose a better tool which saves cost and time. Although traditional tools such as selenium are widely in use even in 2023, new AI based tools may become prominent in the near future.
