Tools Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best end-to-end testing solutions that I’ll cover in this article.
- 6. Testcafe — Efficient tool for developers looking to approach both unit testing and automated testing
As the amount of automated testing tools are seemingly multiplying by the week as software development grows. It can become overwhelming when it comes to deciding what tool is best for your team, or for your company. Whether you are a startup or a corporation, choosing the right testing tool for your projects is a crucial part of the development lifecycle.
In this article, I have selected a list of some of the best end to end testing tools in the market. With a range of tools suitable for developers, QA testers, and Agile team members alike, there is something for every level of expertise.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best end to end testing systems? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for a clean and organized user interface that is easy to navigate.
- Usability: I look for tools that provide features that allow members of your team at any level of expertise to streamline their processes.
- Integrations: I look for useful integrations with programming languages and testing frameworks that allow you to maximize your testing abilities.
- Value for Pricing: I look for the most pleasant user experience for the best price.
End to End Testing Software: Key Features
- Codeless test execution: Allows team members with no coding experience to write, run and maintain test cases.
- Playback feature: Allows you to image capture and record your test run so you can play it back.
- Cross-platform testing: Allows you to test across an abundance of platforms and devices.
- Simple codebase: For tools that have a codebase, a simple codebase allows developers to integrate with a variety of frameworks and libraries.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best End to End Testing Tools
Here’s a brief description of each end-to-end testing software solutions to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Nightwatch
Eliminate the need to choose a testing framework
Nightwatch is a node.js based end-to-end testing tool that allows you to run tests sequentially or in parallel, with retries and waits, using the tool’s Test Runner feature. The tools also provides you the ability to execute integration testing, and allows you to easily implement your own plugins using the flexible and assertion framework.
Nightwatch does not require you to choose a testing framework such as Cucumber or Mocha as it includes its own BDD-style assertion library, allowing you for easy set up and implementation, although integrations with testing frameworks are possible. The tool uses Selenium WebDriver to perform commands and assertions.
Nightwatch is fully open source and free to use.
Avo Assure
90% test coverage without the need to write code
Avo Assure is a scriptless automated testing tool that provides Agile teams 90% test coverage without the need to write code. The tool allows you to execute cross-platform performance testing and functional testing on platforms such as web, mobile and mainframe. This provides your team the ability to complete more testing in less time, streamlining your software development process.
Avo Assure provides a mind map feature that allows you to look at your workflow in a visual format. This makes it easier for you and your team to plan and monitor your test cases and activity. The tool boasts an easy to navigate user interface, and allows you to organize and maintain your work accordingly.
Avo Assure integrates with services such as Jira, TFS and QTest.
Avo Assure provides customized pricing on request. The tool also offers a 14-day free trial.
SmartBear
Automated UI testing tool to create reusable automated tests across various systems
Smartbear’s TestComplete excels in the domain of automated, end-to-end testing. Smartbear leverages its worldwide technology and expertise for developing quality enterprise solutions in building TestComplete. TestComplete simplifies the test creation process without sacrificing speed and agility.TestComplete is versatile, capable of automating UI test desktop, web, and mobile testing (both Android and iOS). It also gives you flexibility with application tests that can be developed manually, scripted, or recorded by using keyword-driven or data-driven functionality. The latter is facilitated by its Record and Play feature, which permits you to record the test case, then later modify its inputs and data, then replay to test it.In addition to being powered by a clean GUI, Smartbear’s TestComplete is also highly scalable. Apart from test, QA, and task management, other features include performance control, workflow management, test case tracking, push notifications, and ticket management.TestCompletes supports and easily integrates with a host of tools and applications. This is largely facilitated by virtue of its being built on an open COM-based architecture, which favors easy extendable product functionality. Some examples of tools that integrate with TestComplete include Jenkins, Git, Atlassian Jira, Atlassian Bamboo, Subversion, Mozilla Bugzilla, and many more. TestComplete has two regimens for its pricing tiers: Fixed and Floating. Fixed is the pricing for single users on a physical machine while Floating represents that for multiple users for both physical and virtual machines. The Fixed price for TestComplete Base starts at $1,210 (presumably priced annually). The Fixed price for TestComplete Pro starts at $2,115 (presumably priced annually). TestComplete offers a free 30-day trial.
testRigor
Best for customizing complex test cases
testRigor is an end to end testing tool that allows you to complete automated testing using plain commands. The tool is geared towards manual QA testers as it is codeless and therefore requires little programming ability. This allows you maximum test coverage. testRigor provides a robust test suite which offers extensive functionality including mobile testing.
testRigor allows QA testers to focus on new feature requests and complex test cases instead of piling focus into repetitive tasks. The tool’s AI has the ability to improve test coverage with little effort by installing the script on your projects. testRigor also allows you to create customized test cases for difficult scenarios.
testRigor integrates with notification applications such as Slack and browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome.
testRigor offers customized pricing upon request.
Selenium WebDriver
Best UI tests for better UI quality
Selenium WebDriver js is a test automation framework that encapsulates an array of tools and libraries that enable web browser automation. The tool offers easy interaction and manipulation of HMTl elements, allowing you to tweak and customize your tests the way you want to write them. Selenium WebDriver js also provides ease of infrastructure management by providing the test environment to your team.
Selenium Webdriver js interacts with your applications via desktop and mobile browsers, allowing you to execute Javascript code, making it easier to test the dynamic components of your DOM. In addition to Javascript, you can use multiple programming languages such as C#, Python, Ruby and Java with Selenium Webdriver js. This allows for easier implementation within development teams as any developer with expertise in any coding language can use the tool.
Selenium Webdriver js is fully open source and free to use.
Testcafe
Efficient tool for developers looking to approach both unit testing and automated testing
TestCafe is a test automation framework that uses pure node.js as a codebase for testing web applications and mobile apps. The tool allows you to test in all stages of the development lifecycle such as starting browsers, test execution and generating reports of test results.
TestCafe allows you to import programming languages and frameworks such as React, Vue and Angular. The tool is well suited to developers within an Agile team and is easy to set up and maintain. TestCafe does not require any external plugins, and allows you to approach unit testing and automation testing in a very similar way.
TestCafe integrates with Jenkins, GitLab and CircleCI.
TestCafe is fully open source and free to use.
Endtest
Minimal user interface that is easily maintainable
Endtest is an automated testing tool that provides a full testing suite, allowing you to build automated end-to-end tests. The tool provides flexible features such as cross browser support, access control and parameterized testing. Endtest also provides geolocation testing, which allows you to test your application from IPs of various geographical locations.
Endtest provides a minimal, clean user interface which is easy to navigate and simple to implement within a team that does not have extensive coding experience. This allows you to minimize the time you spend training on the new tool. Endtest’s user interface displays information in a structured format which makes it easy to follow when reviewing reports and test results.
Endtest integrates with Jira, Jenkins and Slack.
The cost of Endtest is $138.00 USD/month for the Pro package. The tool also offers a 7-day free trial.
Puppeteer
Front-end testing framework to automate manual operations in Google Browser
Puppeteer is a node library built to facilitate app and browser front-end automated testing. As a framework, it is easily deployed with its high-level API control over Chrome and Chromium. Installing Puppeteer simply requires downloading the most recent version of Chromium on your Google Chrome browser that will work with the API. This API allows you to automate actions in Google browsers Chrome and Chromium. In addition, Puppeteer provides test teams with access to the rendering and loading measuring times provided by the Chrome Performance Analysis tool. One of the main advantages of Puppeteer is that it removes the dependency on an external driver to run the tests.Puppeteer enables developers to execute tasks like automating manual testing activities like UI testing, form submission, keyboard mouse inputs, crawling single-page applications, scraping websites, creating PDFs and page screenshots, and so on. However, Puppeteer is limited to only the Chrome and Chromium browsers. Also, it is only available for scripting in JavaScript for Node.js and currently unavailable for other programming languages.Like most things associated with Google, Puppeteer is free.
Cypress
Best for front-end UI testing
Cypress is a front-end test automation tool that allows you to debug your front-end UI of your web apps. The tool provides a built in debugging feature and allows you to set up automatic retries and waits. Cypress also allows you to schedule your test executions within your CI/CD pipeline.
Cypress offers you the ability to write your tests in Javascript syntax, which provides clean and accurate results when testing on single-page applications with features such as the time travel, video recording, and image capturing. The tool takes snapshots of your web applications and allows you to playback the state of the tests over time. This allows you to thoroughly and effectively assess bug issues during your application testing.
Cypress integrates with preprocessors such as Cucumber and Browserify, and devOps tools such as Docker.
The cost of Cypress is $75.00 USD/month. The tool also has an open-source version.
TestRail
Best end to end testing tool to unify the software testing tech stack
TestRail is a comprehensive test management solution that provides end-to-end testing tools for DevOps, QA engineers, and software development teams. The cloud-based platform features customizable dashboards and seamless integration with third-party solutions, including bug trackers, data centers, automation tools, and custom software testing apps.
The solution offers customizable templates, allowing users to develop test plans and run test cases efficiently. Users will benefit from features such as a modern test management solution, test results tracker, and reporting. In addition, the software’s ability to integrate with various third-party systems enables the delivery of end-to-end testing tools for its users.
The test management solution is capable of working with dozens of bug and issue trackers such as Bugzilla, Fogbugz, GitHub, and Bitbucket. With the right integration, QA testers and engineers can effortlessly link test result issues, generate bug reports, look up bugs, and jump directly to the main issues, all from a unified system.
Users can leverage test automation and REST API functionality to integrate all automated tests and deliver valid test case results. They also can use the API to automate some of the key areas of the application.
The 10 Best End To End Testing Tools Summary
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nightwatch Eliminate the need to choose a testing framework | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 2 | Avo Assure 90% test coverage without the need to write code | 14 Days Free Trial | Visit Website | |
| 3 | SmartBear Automated UI testing tool to create reusable automated tests across various systems | 30 Days Free Trial | Base starts at $1,210 (presumably priced annually). The Fixed price for TestComplete Pro starts at $2,115 (presumably priced annually). | Visit Website |
| 4 | testRigor Best for customizing complex test cases | 14-day free trial and free plan available | From $900/Month | Visit Website |
| 5 |  Selenium WebDriver Best UI tests for better UI quality | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 6 |  Testcafe Efficient tool for developers looking to approach both unit testing and automated testing | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 7 |  Endtest Minimal user interface that is easily maintainable | 7 Days Free Trial | $138.00 USD/month for the Pro package | Visit Website |
| 8 |  Puppeteer Front-end testing framework to automate manual operations in Google Browser | Free Trial | Visit Website | |
| 9 |  Cypress Best for front-end UI testing | Not available | $75.00/month | Visit Website |
| 10 | TestRail Best end to end testing tool to unify the software testing tech stack | 14-day free trial | From $37/user/month | Visit Website |
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Other Options
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Smartbear - Automated UI testing tool that allows you to create reusable automated tests across various systems.
- Puppeteer (free) - Front-end testing framework that allows developers to automate manual operations in Google Browser.
- Protractor - Free automated testing tool for AngularJS and Angular applications.
- Rainforest QA - Test automation tool that has an abundance of features including crowd testing .
What Does “End To End Testing” Mean?
End-to-end testing is a methodology within software development whereby you test both functionality and performance of a web and/or mobile app. In end-to-end testing, technical QA teams simulate the end user’s scenario and validate the system under test. The team also ensures that the application’s subsystems work as expected.
What Do You Think About This List?
End-to-end testing is an integral part of software development as it is imperative that the user experience is trialed, and automation tools allow you to half the time you spend on testing your applications. As most tools offer a free trial, you can test out the tools for yourself to see how they fit. From open source tools to paid packages, there’s an array of choices.
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