Mobile Application Testing Tools Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article:
Modern app users aren't very forgiving.
We've all gotten used to using convenient, high-performing mobile apps for everything from shopping to entertainment to banking. So if a user downloads a promising new app and it’s buggy, slow, or hard to navigate, they're likely to delete it and download something else.
That makes mobile application testing essential. App testing ensures that your app has the performance, functionality, and appearance to make a good impression on users.
But comprehensive testing is never simple. You have to check for issues across a wide variety of devices, screen sizes, and network speeds, and you have to produce reports that let developers easily understand and solve those problems.
The mobile application testing solution market is booming. Worth $5 billion back in 2020, it’s expected to reach the $25 billion mark in 2030. In other words, there are a lot of mobile app testing tools to choose from, and the list is growing every day. It can be hard to know which ones are worth the investment.
Read on to get my picks for the top 10 tools for testing your mobile application.
Comparison Criteria
Every mobile app testing tool has its own purpose and feature set, but to compare them, we have to find some common criteria. Here’s a summary of what I look for to select the best mobile application testing tools:
- User Interface (UI): I look for a clean, attractive, and fast UI. It should adapt to the times and have a modern look.
- Depth of testing: Can the tool cover a wide variety of test cases? How many devices and operating systems can you test on?
- Usability: Above all, the user interface should be intuitive for users of any level. Customer support and easy-to-understand documentation also play into usability.
- Integrations: I look for integrations with the tools that DevOps teams are most likely to use, including CI/CD solutions like Jenkins and issue management tools like Jira.
- Value for $: There’s a place for high-end, low-cost, and even free testing tools. The question I’ll consider is whether the functionality offered is appropriate for the price point.
Mobile Application Testing Tools Key Features
These are a few of the features I’ll go into in my analysis of each tool.
- Automation vs. manual testing: Both automated and manual software testing have their use cases. I’ll look into whether the solution uses one type or both.
- Test types: There are many different ways to test an app, including load testing, regression testing, functional testing, security testing, automation testing, scalability testing, and more.
- Real devices vs. simulators: Software testing on real devices offers insights into the user experience that simulators can’t offer. I’ll look at which type of test devices are offered.
- Cross-platform testing: Which platforms and device types can be tested?
- Reporting: How much data is generated, and how is it presented and analyzed?
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Overview Of The 10 Best Mobile Application Testing Tools
Here’s a brief description of each mobile application testing tool to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
BrowserStack
A cross-browser solution for testing mobile apps and websites at scale
When it comes to testing your app on a wide range of real devices, it’s hard to beat BrowserStack. The cloud-based solution allows for testing on 3000+ real devices and browsers. BrowserStack is a powerful solution that runs over two million tests every day across 15 global data centers.
BrowserStack offers two types of mobile app testing: App Live and App Automate.
App Live lets you interact naturally with a remote device like you would one in your hand. You can use the app in real-world conditions and inspect and debug your app as you go. App Automate lets you speed up your test cycles by running concurrent tests across thousands of devices.
BrowserStack’s most popular integrations include Selenium and Jenkins. It also integrates with a long list of CI/CD solutions, automation frameworks, and other tools.
Apptim
Easily test iOS and Android apps without installing SDKs or changing code
Apptim lets you analyze the performance of iOS and Android apps while running them on real devices. You can generate detailed reports on app render time, power consumption, resource usage, crashes, errors, and more and share the reports with your team’s private workspace.
Testing apps on real devices rather than emulators sometimes requires changing the app’s code or installing heavy software development kits that may affect performance. Not with Apptim. It’s an easy-to-set up, lightweight tool that lets you get started quickly without making big changes to your app.
Apptim integrates with Jira, allowing you to publish and track the bugs that you find directly in your project management tool.
Perfecto
Cloud-based continuous testing with scriptless self-healing capabilities
Perfecto is a cloud-based solution that lets you automate web and mobile app testing with both code and codeless options. It’s one of the stronger tools for finding every possible defect, as it offers detailed information from dashboards, heatmaps, videos, screenshots, and crash logs across a range of devices.
A common obstacle to testing apps at scale is the fragility of test automation scripts. Scripts can break due to changes to the UI, a lack of maintenance, incorrect testing frameworks, and more. Perfecto’s self-healing algorithm makes automatic updates to the testing flow so that you can keep testing without devoting resources to fixing the test script.
Perfecto has an impressive list of integrations, including IDEs, continuous integration tools, and test automation frameworks.
Appium
a flexible test framework for iOS and Android mobile app testing
Rather than a mobile app testing platform like most others on this list, Appium is an open-source framework for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS, Android, and desktop. Its flexibility and scalability make it a popular method for automating mobile app testing.
Unlike some of the other commonly-used test frameworks, Appium offers cross-platform compatibility, allowing you to run the same tests on multiple platforms. The tester can do this without modifying or recompiling the app under test in any way. It’s also compatible with real-device testing and emulators.
With a built-in UI automator, Appium can produce detailed information logs and reports for robust analysis and debugging.
Ranorex Studio
Powerful cross-platform GUI testing for desktop, web, and mobile apps
Ranorex Studio is one of the strongest solutions for cross-platform testing on the market. A single Ranorex Studio license lets you run automated tests across a wide variety of legacy and modern systems. For Android and iOS, Ranorex supports testing on both real devices and emulators.
Ranorex has a feature set worthy of expert users, but the ability to create tests with a simple drag-and-drop UI also makes it suitable for beginners. It’s known for its object identification capabilities. For instance, the Ranorex Spy tool identifies and analyzes all types of objects, including dynamic UI elements.
Ranorex’s many integrations include Jira and Bugzilla for issue management, TestRail and TestShell for test management, and Azure DevOps and Jenkins for build and release management.
Test Project
Free, community-based end-to-end testing for web, mobile, and API apps
Let’s start with the most unique feature of TestProject — it’s totally free. TestProject is an open-source tool built on Appium and Selenium that offers codeless testing for Android and iOS apps.
TestProject is easy for anyone to use. For example, you can create tests simply by interacting with your mobile app. Every step you take is recorded and automatically turned into a test. If you want to get into more advanced test creation, you can export your recorded tests as code so that your developers can extend or customize them.
As an open-source app, TestProject has 1,500+ community-generated add-ons that can be used to extend the tool’s capabilities and integrations.
Eggplant
AI-assisted test automation tool with a best-in-class UI
Eggplant is an easy-to-use tool for testing UX across web, desktop, and mobile applications. User reviews of this solution consistently rave about its usability for beginners and expert testers alike.
Eggplant uses machine learning to shift from manual testing to automated testing, facilitating a rapid release cycle. Continuous testing and compatibility checks help you eliminate errors and inconsistencies before the app is released to production.
Eggplant offers integrations with CI/CD tools, including Jenkins, Bamboo, GitHub, and more.
BitBar
Framework agnostic testing on cloud and local devices
Formerly known as CrossBrowserTest, BitBar offers live cloud-based testing, automated cloud-based testing, and local device testing. BitBar is framework agnostic, making it flexible and future-proof.
When testing an unreleased app on local devices, you might worry about protecting your data and credentials and hiding new features. BitBar can help with this by using its SecureTunnel feature to connect to your application, whether it’s behind a firewall, on a proxy server, or plain HTML/CSS/JavaScript files on your local machine.
Headspin
AI-based geolocation and performance testing tool with thousands of devices
HeadSpin is a mobile app testing tool that allows users to remotely test and debug mobile, web, audio, and video applications on thousands of devices and operating systems. You can test the app in multiple scenarios and easily see any differences.
For many app developers, testing an app on a variety of new and old Android and iOS devices isn’t enough — you have to make sure the app works well around the world. HeadSpin is a great tool for testing apps globally, thanks to its geolocation testing. This type of test covers the app against any geography-dependent factors like data bandwidth and network infrastructure.
HeadSpin’s integrations include automation frameworks like Appium and Selenium, CI/CD tools like Azure and Jenkins, and Jira.
Kobiton
Speedy automated testing on 350+ real mobile devices
Kobiton is a mobile app testing platform that’s great for fast manual and automated testing. You can quickly and easily perform functional, performance, and visual tests using Kobiton’s scriptless solution.
The best way to replicate the user experience is to test your app on a wide variety of real devices. But you might not have the resources to buy enough test phones or the time to test on each mobile device. Kobiton lets you run tests on a farm of 350+ real iOS and Android devices in the public cloud. You can also use it to test on your own devices.
Kobiton integrates with the major CI/CD platforms as well as Jira.
The 10 Best Mobile Application Testing Tools Summary
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BrowserStack A cross-browser solution for testing mobile apps and websites at scale | Not available | Starts at $29/month | Visit Website |
| 2 | Apptim Easily test iOS and Android apps without installing SDKs or changing code | Free plan for individual user / 10-minute sessions | Unlimited users / 60-minute sessions starting at $99/user/month | Visit Website |
| 3 |  Perfecto Cloud-based continuous testing with scriptless self-healing capabilities | 14-day free trial | Starts at $83/month | Visit Website |
| 4 |  Appium a flexible test framework for iOS and Android mobile app testing | Not available | Free | Visit Website |
| 5 | Ranorex Studio Powerful cross-platform GUI testing for desktop, web, and mobile apps | Not available | Start at $3,950 for a single-machine, perpetual license. | Visit Website |
| 6 |  Test Project Free, community-based end-to-end testing for web, mobile, and API apps | Free | Free | Visit Website |
| 7 |  Eggplant AI-assisted test automation tool with a best-in-class UI | Not available | Starts at $3,400 for a single test stream | Visit Website |
| 8 |  BitBar Framework agnostic testing on cloud and local devices | 14-day free trial | Starts at $39/month | Visit Website |
| 9 | Headspin AI-based geolocation and performance testing tool with thousands of devices | Free Trial | $99/user/month | Visit Website |
| 10 | Kobiton Speedy automated testing on 350+ real mobile devices | 14-day free trial | From $75/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
The 10 mobile testing tools above are just a small selection of the available options. Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- testRigor — A mobile app testing tool that lets you perform automated tests with nothing but plain English commands.
- TestGrid — Mobile app testing with low-code authoring and management of test cases.
- Katalon — All-in-one low-code tool for mobile, desktop, and API.
- Selendroid — Test automation framework for testing native and hybrid Android apps.
- TestComplete — Automated UI tests with AI-powered object recognition.
- Test IO — Full range of web, mobile, and IoT testing with a flexible service model.
- Android Studio — Mobile app development solutions for Android OS with an intelligent code completion feature.
Don't feel like doing your own in-house testing? You can also employ mobile app testing services to do it for you.
What do you think about this list?
There’s a mobile app testing solution for every need. The list above should get you started finding the best mobile testing tool for your business.
Do you agree with this list? Feel free to let us know in the comments if you have experience with any of these tools or if you want to recommend a different solution.
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Or check out more articles on QA testing tools:
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