Continuous testing (CT) is a software development process in which an application is tested continuously throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). The goal of Continuous Testing is to evaluate software quality across the SDLC. Thus, providing critical feedback earlier and enabling good quality and faster deliveries.
In order to perform Continuous Testing, there are many tools available for us. In this blog, we will discuss the top Continuous Testing tools available to us.
They are:
The Katalon Platform
Built on top of Selenium and Appium, the Katalon Platform is a comprehensive continuous testing solution that addresses the demand for test automation in CI/CD and DevOps.
The Katalon Platform supports web, mobile, API, and desktop application testing across Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. It is a unified set of features that contain recording test steps, executing test cases, providing analytics reports, and CI/CD integration.
The Katalon Platform supports Continuous Testing through Jira Agile integration and native CI/CD integration with the most popular CI tools (e.g. Jenkins, Bamboo, Azure, and CircleCI).
The Katalon Platform is very easy to use. It provides codeless test creation for beginners and advanced extensions for experts. The plugins in Katalon Store can help us extend automation capabilities and easily integrate with other CI/CD software.
Katalon provides full infrastructure support. We can execute tests on all Operating Systems, browsers, and devices as well as on cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.
The Katalon Platform offers a comprehensive set of insightful reports, real-time monitoring, and an instant feedback mechanism. We can completely control our product quality as well as our team’s performance. Katalon’s instant feedback loop will help us detect any rising issues as soon as they appear.
Selenium
Selenium is an open-source framework that can be used in continuous testing. It is a good choice for QA engineers with an advanced level of programming skills.
Selenium supports a wide range of popular Operating Systems (Windows, macOS, Linux) and browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) for cross-environment testing.
However, there are many challenges when integrating Selenium with other tools in the CI/CD pipeline. This is because we need to have certain technical knowledge and skills. That’s why there are some alternatives built on top of Selenium (e.g Katalon Platform) that offer us out-of-the-box continuous testing components without requiring the users to write scripts and configure from scratch.
Appium
Appium is equivalent to Selenium, but it is built for mobile testing. It is a popular mobile testing framework adopted by many teams. Appium can be leveraged and customized for Continuous Testing needs.
This software supports mobile cross-platform testing on both Android and iOS devices. Additionally, a large number of cloud device providers allowed users to run Appium tests on their own infrastructure.
Using Appium allows us to write, upload, execute, and view test results directly in the cloud. However, the challenge lies in the initial steps of integrating with the CI/CD ecosystem.
Similar to Selenium, Appium requires sound knowledge of testing frameworks to set up and implement. This makes Appium most suited for teams having a deep understanding of this framework and the CI tools in the industry.
Eggplant
Eggplant (formerly known as Testplant) supports a wide range of automation technologies and platforms from mobile and web to Point of Sales (POS) applications. With its short learning curve, Eggplant is one of the most suited Continuous Testing tools for manual testers. This tool provides a unique method of test automation: an image-based solution.
Eggplant interacts with Applications Under Test (AUTs) by replicating the user’s points of view through screenshots and images instead of displaying raw test scripts.
It provides a test lab which is a cloud devices management service that allows 24/7 access for development teams to use in continuous testing and continuous deployment.
Moreover, Eggplant supports integration with the CI/CD ecosystem such as Bamboo, Jenkins, CA Agile Requirements Designers, and more.
We can also integrate Eggplant with Undo which is a record and playback tool to help the developers shorten the time detecting and responding to failures.
Watir
Focusing on web application testing, Watir is a good open-source test automation and Continuous Testing tool based on the Ruby language.
Watir provides cross-browser testing with popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. It supports data-driven testing and headless browser testing, which are necessary for running tests in CI/CD pipeline.
We can also integrate Watir with Behavioral Driven Development (BDD) tools and frameworks such as Cucumber, RSpect, or Test/Unit. By combining Watir with BDD frameworks and integrating with CI tools (e.g., Jenkins), our team can achieve successful continuous testing throughout the development lifecycle.
Tosca
Tosca is a test automation tool created by Tricentis. Among other continuous testing tools, Tosca is a model-based tool that automatically scans and loads AUT directly into the software with very minimal manual steps.
Tosca supports testing for enterprise applications, mobile, web, API, and business intelligence. This tool simplifies the technical architecture of the application so that business stakeholders can be involved directly with the testing process.
Tosca can also suggest certain critical test cases for the team to quickly identify and narrow down the most troublesome areas of the application.
Tosca is a continuous and DevOps testing tool that provides a platform that integrates with DevOps and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) systems.
It offers virtual services to help the users simulate the test environments as expected in production; so that the team can increase test coverage and ensure
TestSigma
Testsigma is a newcomer to the test automation industry. This software offers a cloud-based solution that supports web, mobile, and API test automation. It uses the natural English language to compose tests, which reduces the learning curve for manual testers to quickly adopt automation skills.
In terms of continuous testing, Testsigma provides test infrastructure with devices, OSs, and browsers that are most suitable for teams with limited resources or complex testing needs. This tool uses AI to identify potential risks and issues coming from constant changes and modifications for immediate actions.
The custom function allows us to add Selenium or Java to extend Testsigma’s capabilities.
Testsigma supports integration with popular CI/CD tools such as Jira, Slack, etc.
TestComplete
TestComplete is a test automation tool for desktop, web, and mobile applications. This tool supports various scripting languages like Python, Javascript, and VBScript.
TestComplete allows us to perform data-driven testing or keyword-driven testing. It has introduced AI features for dynamic test object recognition and maintenance. TestComplete automatically detects and updates tests if there are changes to the UI of the AUT.
We can maximize our test coverage by allowing integration with third-party unit test frameworks. The frameworks are TestNG, Selenium Webdriver as well as SOAP UI for API testing.
TestComplete supports integration with the CI/CD ecosystem via plugins. We can utilize these plugins to integrate with popular CI/CD tools. The tools include Jenkins, GIT, and Zephyr (a test management tool by Smartbear). Or else, we can develop custom plugins to integrate with the existing system.
Conclusion
The choice of continuous testing tools should not only meet our current needs but should also focus on potential trends and improvements. A good Continuous Testing tool must support basic optimization, learning curve, supported programming languages, continuous testing features, technical compatibility, integration with other CI software, and integration with our organization’s entire CI/CD ecosystem.
I hope now you’re clear with the top continuous testing tools. The tools mentioned above are the top best tools to fulfill these needs and make our lives easy.
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