An Ideal List of Useful Tools in Automated Testing

As people in the field of software development know, there are marked differences between manual and automated testing. Manual testing means using physical effort and time to ensure that the code does all the things that it’s supposed to do. Automated testing, by its name alone denotes automation.

 

The work is considerably made more convenient with the emergence of the various tools for automated testing. Most software development services make use of some of these automated testing tools to deliver the right kind of solutions to customers.

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Ideal Tools for Automated Testing

The following is a list of the ultimate tools in Automated testing. Moreover, the list includes the different categories of the testing tools, as well as tools related to all other test automation aspects.

 

Testing tools for User Interface

In testing via the UI, the testing tools could be grouped into different fields. The tools help check UI components and the end-to-end functionality of an app through imitating user actions in a browser—switching a page, clicking a button, entering symbols in a field, and so on.

• UFT. The most popular tool among commercial Selenium alternatives. It’s not only user-friendly, it’s robust and easy to install with a rather good built-in reporting, aside from support for desktop and mobile, web testing, database testing, and API/web service.
• Selenium 3.0 WebDriver. The core tool in the pool of automated testing tools. A platform-independent and open-source tool, it supports test automation for all major browsers on the web. Since it’s a set of APIs basically, it provides a scalable and flexible way of testing web app.

Tools used in Visual Validation

Visual validation tools take a UI screenshot in the process of testing, and make a comparison with a template that’s previously stated. The test automation tools help check visual bugs mostly, including layout, wrong size, visual elements color, missing icons and images, visual components that overlaps, but could be used for functionality as well.

• Applitools.  Leads the way when it comes to automating visual testing. Aside from the powerful AI-driven capacities, which enable ignoring non-critical UI visuals inconsistencies, the tools offer a parallel test execution, both on cloud-based runs and concise testing reports, and on-premises. It integrates with popular CI tools like Travis, Jenkins and so on. The tool however is only free for open-source projects.

Snapshot Testing

Help to exclude UI changes that are unintended much faster, and report to developers quickly. The tools capture a complete User Interface element structure stored within the text files, and uses a diff algorithm to compare it with a pre-stated standard.

• Jest. Currently a fully-featured, open-source test automation framework that Facebook designed for testing any app of JavaScript. The focus of Jest-based testing is high performance.

Testing for API/Web services

Dedicated tools that help to check how a request to an app’s business logic, or external services are handled and processed.

This enables fast checking of integrations, as well as the functionality of an app early on.

• Postman. A popular API testing tool that provides support for command line running scripts. Has advanced features, including API mocking, in-built variables support, API data visualization, convenient workspaces, and API monitoring for sharing and organizing work between members of a team or numerous teams.
• SoapUI/SoapUI Pro. The most renowned test automation tool in the world for API/web service testing. It has support for SOAP, RESTful web services, and HTTP. It’s a user-friendly and simple tool, which helps with functional testing and performance of web services.

Mobile Device Testing

Tools for testing native and hybrid mobile applications due to the fact that not all web User Interface testing tools have support for testing mobile-designed and developed apps.  

• Calabash. Allows iOS and Android native apps, and hybrid applications tests. It has a built-in function for taking screenshots in an instant.
• Appium. A cross-platform and a very popular open-source tool that works for Android and iOS. Allows automated tests that run on physical devices, simulators, and emulators, and support for any programming language too.

Unit Testing (handled mostly by software developers)

Tools for this kind of testing ensure the accuracy of low-level code, and testing single-unit code.

• TestNG. A member of the family of xUnit for JUnit that’s Java inspired, but offers functionality that’s more powerful. Among the pros of the tool are easier-to-use and more advanced annotations, as well as parallel testing support.
• Junit 5. A leader in Java unit testing. It belongs to the xUnit frameworks family, the testing model that’s on the way to become a standard framework for any language. It’s supported by all major build systems, and IDEs, like Maven, Gradle, and Ant.

Tests in the Cloud

Tools to run cloud tests help perform testing for various browser/device/OS combinations, without additional efforts and costs in setting up a big test lab, and support and parallel testing.

• BrowserStack. A cloud-based test automation platform offering a huge pool of browsers, devices, and operating systems. Also, it could generate videos and screenshots of emulated actions. It’s easy to configure and use, and significantly cost-effective. It does not however enable the re-use of code that’s written in testing that’s Appium-based.

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Conclusion

Automated testing is another process expected in all software development company. The popularity of test automation tools goes hand in hand with the emergence of new tools that are focused on more efficient test generation, maintenance.