With the Agile and DevOps manifesto as the standard of software testing, setting a clear-cut automation testing tools evaluation strategy is key. Ultimately, this strategy will need to answer the questions of:

What features are you looking for?
Who’s going to use the tool for testing? Devs or QA teams?
Can it be integrated with CI/CD pipelines or toolchains?
Is it easy to maintain scripts and reuse test assets?
What is your team’s budget?
Where can you get support for technical issues?

Plus, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all automation tool. It really boils down to your team’s specific needs.

Top 15 List of Automation Testing Tools (with Feature Highlights)

Comparison Automation Tools

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a low-code and scalable automation testing tool for web, API, desktop (Windows), and mobile applications. Up until now, the Katalon community has surpassed the 1 million users and it has been the trusted automation solution of over 100,000 businesses.

Having removed the requirements of coding and building a test automation framework from square one, users can just download the tool and focus solely on testing. Additionally, Studio offers frequent releases to stay compatible with the latest platforms/browsers/OS.

Feature Highlights:

Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback, Manual and Scripting Mode
Supported testing methodologies: BDD, DDT, Keyword-Driven Testing, Cross-Browser Testing (Headless, Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari) and Cross-Platform Mobile Testing (iOS, Android)
Automatic Retry Failed Tests, Smart Wait, and Self-Healing mechanisms
Reusable test objects, keywords, and test cases with Test Artifact Sharing and Page Object Model design
Native integrations with popular CI/CD and ALMs tools (Jira, GitLab, Jenkins, BitBucket, Azure DevOps, etc.)
Smart Debugging UI and test reporting to troubleshoot failures quickly
Detailed tool documentation and video tutorials on Katalon Academy

Website: katalon.com/katalon-studio/

Price: Free or $159/month

Selenium

Rolled out in 2004, Selenium is one of the most, if not the most, popular open-source framework for web testing automation. Its suite of software consists of Selenium WebDriver, Selenium Grid and Selenium IDE.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, etc.
Supported browsers: Chrome, Firefox, IE, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, etc.
Testing on local or on remote machines via the Selenium server
Parallel and cross-browser executions to reduce execution time and increase test coverage
Integrations with other testing frameworks (like TestNG for reporting) and CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.selenium.dev/

Price: Free

Appium

Like Selenium, Appium is also an open-source automation testing tool, but for mobile applications. Using mobile JSON wire protocol, Appium allows users to write automated UI tests for native, web-based, and hybrid mobile applications on both Android and iOS.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming languages: Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Perl
Cross-platform testing with reusable test scripts and same APIs
Execution across real devices, simulators, and emulators
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: http://appium.io/

Price: Free

TestComplete

TestComplete can automate functionalUI testing for desktop, mobile, and web applications. With built-in support for 500+ controls and third-party frameworks, TestComplete can handle and identify dynamic UI elements in most available technologies.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, Delphi, C++, C#
Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback, manual and scripting modes with built-in keywords.
Object identification with property-based and AI visual recognition
Parallel, cross-browser and cross-device testing
Integrations with other testing frameworks, CI/CD tools, and SmartBear ecosystem

Website: https://smartbear.com/product/testcomplete/overview/

Price: From $2,702/year

Take you Freemium Automation Testing platform

Cypress

Purely supporting JavaScript frameworks, Cypress is a developer-centric automation tool for end-to-end web testing. Built upon a new architecture, Cypress can directly operate within a browser in the same run-loop as your application, enabling native access to elements and faster executions.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: JavaScript
Snapshots of test step execution and debuggability from familiar developer tools
Control over function behavior, server response, timers, and network traffic
Connection to Dashboard Service for test performance and optimization
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.cypress.io/

Price: Free or from $75/month for Dashboard Service

Ranorex Studio

Ranorex

Next on the list, Ranorex Studio can automate GUI testing for web, mobile, and desktop applications. Equipped with both low-code automation and full IDE, Ranorex’s framework is easy to start for beginners and productive to use for experienced testers.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming languages: VB .Net and C#
Broad support for web, mobile, and desktop technologies
Ranorex Spy tool and RanoreXPath for reliable recognition of GUI elements
Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback and scripting mode
Distributed or parallel testing with Selenium Grid
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.ranorex.com/

Price: From €2,890/year

Perfecto

Perfecto is a cloud-based and automated testing platform for web and mobile applications. From automated cross-environment executions, custom capabilities, test analysis, and broad integrations, Perfecto makes continuous testing more achievable for DevOps teams.

Feature Highlights:

Scriptless test creation for UI web applications
Real-user stimulation for mobile testing: network visualization, and other environmental conditions
Parallel and cross-platform executions
Advanced test analytics with centralized dashboard and AI noise filtering
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.perfecto.io/products/platform/overview

Price: From $125/month

LambdaTest

LambdaTest provides automated testing on the cloud. Its cloud service allows teams to scale up their test coverage with speedy parallel, cross-browser, and cross-device testing.

Feature Highlights:

Online Selenium Grid on the cloud of over 2000 devices, browsers, and OSs
Support for Cypress test scripts parallel and cross-browser executions
Geolocation web testing across over 27 countries
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.lambdatest.com/automation-testing

Price: From $99/month

Postman

Postman is one of the most widely-used automation testing tools for API. It allows users to write different kinds of tests, from functional, integration to regression tests, and execute them automatically in CI/CD pipelines via the command line.

Feature Highlights:

Friendly and easy-to-use interface equipped with code snippets
Support for multiple HTML methods, Swagger and RAML formats
Broad support for API schemas to generate collections and API elements
Test suite creation, executions with parameterization, and debugging
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.postman.com/

Price: Free or from $12/user/month

SoapUI

This open-source API testing tool is designed for REST and SOAP Web Services. Some vital features include automated functional, performance, regression, and security testing. Users can also aim for the commercial version - ReadyAPI (formerly SoapUI Pro) for more advanced capabilities.

Feature Highlights:

Drag and Drop to create tests, even with complex scenarios
Service stimulation to reduce efforts of building production systems for testing
Quick and easy test script reusability
More protocol support, capabilities, and CI/CD integration with ReadyAPI

Website: https://www.soapui.org/

Price: Free or from $749/year for ReadyAPI

Eggplant Functional

Eggplant

Being a part of Eggplant’s ecosystem, Eggplant Functional is a GUI automation testing tool for mobile, desktop, and web applications. With an image-based approach, it allows a single script to automate different combinations of platforms and technologies.

Feature Highlights:

Flexible methods for test design: recording, manual mode, and assisted scripting
Unique English-like scripting language - SenseTalk
Connection to Eggplant ecosystem for more testing capabilities and monitoring
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.eggplantsoftware.com/product-downloads

Price: Contact sales

Tricentis Tosca

Tricentis

Tricentis Tosca is a comprehensive automation tool for web, API, mobile, and desktop testing. It has a unique model-based testing approach, allowing users to scan an application’s UI or APIs to create a business-familiar model for test creation and maintenance.

Feature Highlights:

Codeless test creation and high reusability of test assets with the model-based approach

Risk-based test optimization with smart test design and requirement prioritization
Service virtualization to stimulate and build realistic testing environments
API scanning with extensive support for API technologies
Parallel and cross-platform testing
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: https://www.tricentis.com/products/automate-continuous-testing-tosca/

Price: Contact sales

Apache JMeter

This open-source tool is designed for automated performance testing, primarily for web applications. It can stimulate a heavy load of users to access web services and analyze the AUT’s performance. Jmeter can also be used for functional API testing.

Feature Highlights:

Friendly and easy-to-use interface
Test plan creation with recording feature
Test execution in both GUI and CLI modes
Support for many different servers, applications, and protocol types
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: https://jmeter.apache.org/

Price: Free

Robot Framework

Robot framework

Robot Framework is a generic open-source framework for test automation, especially for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development. Built with a keyword-driven approach, it’s low-code to start and also extensible with a rich ecosystem of tools and libraries.

Feature Highlights:

Test case creation with easy tabular syntax
Keyword-driven and data-driven testing support
Variables for testing in different environments
Support for plenty of external libraries and integrations with other tools

Website: https://robotframework.org/

Price: Free

Protractor

This open-source framework automates end-to-end testing primarily for Angular and AngularJS applications. It works as an integrator of Selenium, WebDriver, Jasmine, NodeJS, and other technologies. That said, Protractor can also work well for regression testing with non-Angular apps.

Feature Highlights:

Test execution in a real browser using native events
Element identification in Angular applications with extended HTML attributes
Support for behavior-driven development frameworks like Jasmine and Mocha
Automatic waiting
Parallel and cross-browser testing with Selenium Grid

Website: https://www.protractortest.org/

Price: Free

Select Your Best Fit Automation Testing Tool

There’s no need to emphasize again the importance of automation testing tools. To pick one for your team, don’t just blindly follow other teams’ success. Instead, look at your team’s specific needs, human resources, and future scalability, to choose the best fit option.

If your team’s testers are experienced developers, using Selenium or Appium for an automation framework can be great since it allows you to build and scale from the ground up.

However, if your team consists of mostly manual testers and you need a low-code solution to start but it can also grow with the team’s future scalability, ready-made frameworks like Katalon Studio can be a perfect solution.

Creating, running, maintaining tests and getting centralized analytics of test results can be done effortlessly.

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