10 Best Continuous Testing Tools Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
With so many different continuous testing tools available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want to automate the execution of tests at every stage of development but need to figure out which tool is best. I've got you! In this post I'll help make your choice easy, sharing my personal experiences using dozens of different continuous testing software with a variety of teams and projects, with my picks of the best continuous testing tools.
What Are Continuous Testing Tools?
Continuous testing tools are software that automate the testing process in software development, particularly within Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. These tools enable the frequent and automated execution of tests as part of the development process, ensuring that code changes are continually evaluated for issues.
The benefits of continuous testing tools include the early detection and resolution of defects, significantly improving the quality of the software. By integrating testing into the development process, these tools accelerate the time to market, allowing for rapid releases of software. They enhance the efficiency of development teams by reducing manual testing efforts and provide a consistent framework for testing. This continuous approach to testing ensures that software is always ready for deployment, minimizing risks and reducing the costs associated with late-stage defect discovery.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Continuous Testing Tools
Here’s a brief description of each continuous testing software that showcases each tool’s best use case, its noteworthy features, and some pros and cons. I’ve also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface.
PagerDuty is a real-time operations monitoring system that enables developers to improve visibility and agility across their coding infrastructure with machine data and human intelligence. It provides automated capabilities that keep you connected to your code in production and offers the visibility you need to ensure quality.
Why I picked PagerDuty: This solution provides the insights you need to assess and resolve incidents quickly with the help of runbook automation. PagerDuty helps you avert future issues by learning from past issues, identifying repeat defects, and delivering better code or products through continuous testing and learning. With this software, you can quickly pinpoint the root cause of a defect and resolve issues speedily.
PagerDuty Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: PagerDuty uses machine learning to group defect or bug alerts in ways that are easy to analyze. This helps you make sense of notifications quickly and take action accordingly. There are alert suppression and grouping capabilities that enable you to isolate and prioritize according to your needs.
With PagerDuty, you can automate incident responses. It allows you to automate remediation processes and assign tasks to the right teams within a short time.
Integrations include Slack, AWS, Zoom, Zendesk, Okta, ServiceNow, Datadog, Jira, GitHub Actions, and Docker. Other ways you can integrate tools with PagerDuty include Email integration, custom API, and PagerDuty Agent.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Great reporting features
- A range of notification or escalation options
- Seamless integrations
Cons:
- It’s a bit expensive
- Some things are hard to set up
Datadog offers fast, codeless continuous testing, which allows you to ship features with confidence. With Datadog, you can optimize code quality continuously by seeing inside any stack or any app at any scale and from anywhere.
Why I picked Datadog: I added this tool to my list because it conserves engineering resources and accelerates continuous testing by allowing you to test and troubleshoot on the same unified platform. Datadog provides time-saving and scalable features that empower you to run tests according to your needs without wasting your QA efforts. It helps you achieve wide test coverage as a result of its support for a wide range of protocols, frameworks, and APIs.
Datadog Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a codeless web recorder, parallel test runs, and built-in multi-location testing. Datadog enables you to improve test reliability by removing the need to implement code with codeless tests, reducing false positives via self-healing, and automating cross-browser testing.
Integrations include CI providers, such as GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, and CircleCI, and collaboration tools, like Slack and Jira. Other top integrations include Ably, Active Directory, Agora Analytics, and Airbrake.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Time-saving and cost-effective
- Testing with ease and speed
- Scalable and reliable
Cons:
- Long customer support response time
- New users find some settings challenging
Best continuous testing tool for running maintenance-free testing
This is a test automation system that helps DevOps teams perform continuous testing for web apps, mobile apps, and APIs in minutes. Used by some leading brands, like Cisco and Samsung, Testsigma provides a unified platform that helps you replace multiple frameworks with testing solutions that are 5X faster.
Why I picked Testsigma: It is an AI-driven continuous testing software that lets you automate end-to-end testing for your products with ease. It’s very easy to use; no setup or coding skills are required. Testsigma uses simple natural language to write automated tests. This allows your non-technical team members and other stakeholders to collaborate and take part in automation testing.
Another thing that makes this tool stand out is that it enables maintenance-free testing with English scripts that self-heal. You can put maintenance on auto-pilot with the help of artificial intelligence. Testsigma resolves broken tests automatically, heals dynamically changing elements, and makes suggestions on how failed tests can be fixed.
Testsigma Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include reusable test groups, schedulers, automatic bug reporting, and visual testing. It provides scalable test environments on the cloud, which enable you to perform tests on many operating systems, browsers, and real mobile devices. With Testsigma Lab, you can execute continuous tests in parallel. This helps you to fix bugs faster and achieve quicker feedback time.
Integrations are available with CI/CD, bug tracking, and productivity tools. Integrations with CI/CD solutions include Atlassian Bamboo, Azure DevOps, Circle CI, Jenkins, AWS, and Codeship CI. Other popular integrations include Jira, YouTrack, Slack, and Saucepans.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Team collaboration
- Actionable and fast feedback
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Limited customization
- Customer support needs to be improved
Stackify Retrace is an application performance management and observability tool. The software helps you increase code quality by finding and getting rid of hidden defects in your code.
Why I picked Stackify Retrace: This tool stands out because it helps QA teams proactively identify application bugs. It provides real-time monitoring that lets you continuously assess and improve your product’s performance by quickly catching major metrics throughout your app’s lifecycle.
Stackify Retrace offers centralized logs, which help streamline troubleshooting and issue resolution. There are search and drill-down capabilities to help you get to the root of defects and fix your application quickly.
Stackify Retrace Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: Stackify Retrace has a lightweight code-level profiling capability that helps you gain insight into your code quality through detailed snapshots. This feature enables you to get rid of bugs and performance issues by showing you exactly where the problem lies with no guesswork. It gives you access to centralized analytics and allows you to build custom dashboards to keep tabs on what matters.
Integrations include TeamCity, Jenkins, Octopus, Jira, Axosoft, Slack, Appveyor, AWS, Azure DevOps, and CircleCI.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Very responsive customer support
- Full software life cycle coverage
- Unlimited users
Cons:
- Some setups are time-consuming
- Documentation needs improvement
Travis CI is a cloud-based CI/CD solution that lets you test your code in minutes. The software helps you ship quality code with confidence by automatically catching code failures and bugs. It combines speed, quality, and cost-effectiveness in one platform.
Why I picked Travis CI: I like this tool because it lets you carry out multi-environment testing. With Travis CI, you can run tests simultaneously on different platforms, including Mac, Linux, and iOS. You can also test on unique platforms, such as AMD Graviton 64, IBM PowerPC, and IBM Z.
It’s a flexible tool that supports over 30 scripting languages so you can easily integrate your stack to start testing your code in minutes. With custom integrations, you can extend the capabilities of this tool according to your needs.
Travis CI Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include parallel building with Build Matrix, simple syntax, clean VMs, auto-deployment on passing builds, and live build requests. Travis CI enables you to identify and fix failed tests without guesswork. It highlights bugs to help you find and resolve them quickly. In addition, this software’s lean engineering helps you avoid build bloat. You can minimize costs by controlling the number of builds and staying focused on important tasks at a time.
Integrations: You can connect or integrate Travis CI with Assembla, GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, Perforce, HashiCorp, AWS, Docker, BrowserStack, and Slack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Flexible and customizable
- Multi-platform testing
- Very fast test execution
Cons:
- Some configurations are complex
- Pricing is on the high side
Worksoft offers a continuous testing manager that enables users to automate continuous testing. It provides the necessary tooling you need to catch defects and failures before they impact your product.
Why I picked Worksoft: In my opinion, Worksoft is one of the best continuous testing tools due to its specialized Continuous Testing Manager. The manager makes it easy to remotely execute, manage, and deploy continuous testing at scale. It allows you to schedule tests and run remote testing with centralized control.
With this tool, you can implement fully automated, unattended end-to-end tests in local and remote test labs at any scale. You have the flexibility to schedule your tests as you wish, on a daily, hourly, or weekly basis.
Worksoft Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: Worksoft provides centralized visibility into test cases. You can monitor tests and get a high-level view of what’s going on from a single interface. The Continuous Testing Manager lets you run both linear and parallel tests across multiple devices. As a result, you can maximize your testing windows and boost productivity by implementing more tests per time.
Integrations include IBM Rational Quality Manager, Micro Focus ALM/Quality Center, SAP Solution Manager, Jira, ServiceNow, Microsoft VSTS/TFS, Applitools Eyes, Salesforce, NeoLoad, and Postman.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Great customer support
- Saves time and resources
- Boosts productivity
Cons:
- Needs more customization
- It takes time to learn
This is an easy-to-use software that helps you ensure the quality of your application without sacrificing speed or agility. TestComplete is a GUI test automation tool that uses AI capabilities to enable you to test desktop, web, and mobile applications with ease.
Why I picked TestComplete: With TestComplete’s simplified Command Line Interface and REST API, you can easily integrate your automated tests into your DevOps ecosystem for seamless continuous testing. It streamlines the entire process by letting you record your tests once and play them back across various platforms, like desktop, web, and mobile apps.
You can get real-time reports on the progress and status of your test by seamlessly integrating with bug tracking and feedback tools. TestComplete lets you enjoy the power of automated test reuse. You can save time and money and increase test coverage by reusing your automated UI tests across projects and platforms.
TestComplete Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features that make TestComplete a leading continuous testing tool include an AI-powered object recognition engine and keyword-driven testing. With AI-based visual recognition, you can streamline test creation and maintenance by properly identifying dynamic UI elements. The built-in keyword-based testing framework makes it easy to build automated functional UI tests without any coding language.
Additionally, TestComplete offers free training and support. From onboarding to ongoing support, there is a responsive team to provide guidance and help you solve problems.
Integrations: It lets you integrate with continuous integration, source control, bug tracking, and test management tools. Major integrations include Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Git, Zephyr, Jira, BitBar, ReadyAPI, GitLab, Bamboo, and TeamCity.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Improved test coverage
- Easy to get started
- Detailed documentation
Cons:
- Needs more customization
- Expensive for small teams
This is a continuous integration tool and an extensible framework used by DevOps teams to create a custom continuous build process. It’s open-source and written in Java; CruiseControl can be used on a wide variety of projects.
Why I picked CruiseControl: I included this software because it’s free to use. CruiseControl, hosted by Sourceforge, is an OSI Certified open-source tool. It includes a wide range of plugins that allow you to connect to dozens of source controls, build technologies, and alerting systems (such as email and instant messaging). The notification schemes help you and your stakeholders stay in the know about your continuous testing activities.
CruiseControl Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a web interface that provides details of the current and previous builds. This gives you an overview of your continuous test cases, test status, and other necessary information that help you make data-based decisions. CruiseControl features a rich selection of third-party tools, so you can extend its capabilities by integrating your favorite tools.
Integrations include Perforce, Telerik JustMock, Apache Kafka, GitHub, Ant, NAnt, Maven, Phing, Rake, and Xcode.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Good notifications system
- Highly extensible
- It’s free
Cons:
- The documentation needs more content
- No large community of users
This is an open-source network intrusion detection and prevention system. Snort monitors your infrastructure and generates alerts to help you maintain quality and security.
Why I picked Snort: It is an intrusion prevention solution capable of real-time traffic analysis. Snort can help you monitor your products in real time. This capability lets you know when there are defects or issues with your applications. By monitoring your infrastructure continuously, you can ensure quality by getting rid of defects or bugs as soon as they are identified.
Snort Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features: Snort has an effective alerting system, which it uses to notify users when there is a trigger. The tool keeps tabs on your product’s performance and sends a notification when it discovers something wrong. This real-time monitoring and alerting provide the visibility you need to maintain quality no matter the complexity of your infrastructure.
Integrations include ServicePilot, Elastic Observability, Cyrebro, Panaseer, ThreatQ, Securonix Security, EndaceProbe, Joe Sandbox, and Picus.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Guidance on how to get started
- User community
- It’s open-source
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Difficult configurations and workflows
AppVerify helps with continuous automated functional assessment of all applications and components in your infrastructure. It allows you to perform automated data-driven functional testing continuously, according to your agile software development needs.
Why I picked AppVerify: It offers automated testing for continuous delivery in Citrix environments. No matter how complex your environment is, this tool enables you to easily automate the testing of Citrix throughout your software development lifecycle. Reduce testing time significantly by executing tests and fixing issues with total codeless testing scripts. No coding is required.
AppVerify Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include automatically creating scripts. With a few clicks, Automai’s robotic automation solution helps you create scripts. Codeless scripts are created and presented in an easy-to-understand format. All you need to do is playback and see the bot navigate the process.
AppVerify is also flexible; it allows you to edit and make changes to your test scenarios according to your needs.
Integrations are available with various platforms, including Citrix, Azure Virtual Desktop, Dynamics 365, VMware, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Automatically create test scripts
- Very flexible
- Non-programmers can run tests
Cons:
- No large community of users
- Long customer service response time
The 10 Best Continuous Testing Tools Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| PagerDuty | From $21/user/month | Website |
| Datadog | From $15/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
| Testsigma | From $399/Monthly | Website |
| Stackify Retrace | From $9.99/month | Website |
| Travis CI | From $34/user/month | Website |
| Worksoft | Pricing upon request | Website |
| TestComplete | From $1,831 per license | Website |
| CruiseControl | Free To Use | Website |
| Snort | From $2.49/sensor/month (billed annually). | Website |
| AppVerify | Pricing upon request | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best continuous testing tools list:
- IBM Rational Functional Tester (RFT)
Best for implementing GUI and data-driven testing
- Vagrant
Best for lowering continuous testing setup time
- Katalon Studio
Best tool for real-time visibility, actionable insights, and self-healing
- QuerySurge
Best automation testing tool for continuous data testing
- Eggplant
Best for AI-powered test automation and digital twin modeling
- Micro Focus Unified Functional Testing (UFT)
Best software for performing functional and regression test automation
- Watir
Best open-source Ruby library for automating tests
- Appium
Best continuous testing tool for facilitating UI automation of many application platforms
- Tricentis Tosca
Best automated software testing tool for Salesforce
- Selenium
Best for automating web applications for testing purposes
Selection Criteria For Continuous Testing Tools
Here’s a summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best continuous testing tools for this article:
Core Functionality
Here are the key functionalities I considered before selecting the 10 best continuous testing tools:
- Integration with popular CI/CD tools
- Intelligent automation
- Streamlined, customizable workflow and test design
- Multiple testing capabilities
- Testing across different platforms, operating systems, or device types
Key Features
I considered some key features before adding any tool to the list. All the solutions recommended above have the following major features (and more):
- Test management: This capability helps you organize testing activities, assign tasks, manage your team members, and keep track of all your tests in one place.
- Reporting: Reporting and analytics features provide you with the test data and actionable insights you need to make data-driven decisions.
- Team collaboration: Collaboration features let your team members work together, share test data, and communicate effectively in real time, regardless of their physical locations.
- Real-time visibility: This provides you with real-time access to test data. Instead of waiting to retrieve a report at the end of each testing session, you can see what’s going on while your test runs are active.
- Self-healing: This feature relies on artificial intelligence to repair broken test scripts or changing elements automatically and dynamically.
- Parallel testing: Tools with parallel testing capabilities allow you to use automation to execute the same tests simultaneously in multiple environments or platforms.
Usability
I prioritized tools that are easy to learn and use. Your QA or development team wouldn’t want to spend a whole month trying to master how to use new DevOps testing tools. So, I recommended tools that have a great user interface, detailed documentation, responsive customer support, and third-party online tutorials.
Software Integrations
I picked solutions that allow you to integrate your debugging, continuous deployment, and productivity tools. Some of the tools come with custom APIs that help you connect as many tools as you want. For popular third-party tools, you don’t have to go through complex configurations. The integration processes are already streamlined for a faster workflow.
Pricing
I thoroughly evaluated the pricing model of each tool. I looked out for continuous testing systems that offer high value for money. My list features solutions with flexible, friendly, and transparent pricing.
People Also Ask
Here are some of the questions people ask about continuous testing tools:
What are the benefits of continuous testing tools?
The benefits of continuous testing platforms include discovering errors early, testing often, improving the testing and development process, the use of automation, increasing the release rate, team collaboration, and reducing business risks.
Who uses continuous testing tools?
Software testers, quality assurance teams, and DevOps teams use continuous testing solutions to manage their software testing processes and accelerate the delivery process.
How does continuous testing work?
Continuous testing works by testing applications continuously throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). Continuous testing is integrated into the CI/CD pipeline or DevOps practices to foster testing at all stages of the SDLC and ensure that high-quality products are delivered.
Other QA Testing Software
If you’re looking to learn more about software testing tools, check out the following reviews:
- Best Test Management Tools
- Best Automation Testing Tools
- Best End-to-End Testing Tools
- Best Performance Testing Software
Ship High-Quality Code With Continuous Testing Tools
These tools provide the features you need to integrate with your development environment and test your code throughout the SDLC, from coding to deployment. No matter how complex or unique your project is, my list features a tool or a combination of solutions you can rely on for cost-effective continuous testing.
Go through my recommendations to find what suits your needs, and if you want to learn more about software testing tools and the QA industry, subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest articles and podcasts from industry experts.