Automated software testing is becoming more and more important for many software projects in order to automatically verify key functionality, test for regressions and help teams run a large number of tests in a short period of time. Many teams (especially larger projects) still require a significant amount of manual functional testing in addition to automated testing, either because of the lack of sufficient resources or skills to automate all tests.
- Common Automated Software Testing Tools
- Automated Software Testing Tools List
- Top Software Testing Tools
There are various tools that help software teams build and execute automated tests. Many teams are actively using unit tests as part of their development efforts to verify critical parts of their projects such as libraries, models and methods. Historically, testing user interfaces of desktop-based applications via automated tests have been more challenging, and currently available tools for this are usually commercial and quite expensive.
With the growing number of web-based applications this is changing, however, as verifying and testing web-based interfaces is easier and there are various tools that help with this, including free open source projects. Please see below for a list of popular and useful tools, projects, books and resources to get started with automated software testing.
Automated Web Testing Tools 7 Tools
Automatically testing your web application is a good way to ensure that new versions of your application don't introduce bugs and regressions. Automation of your web application testing also allows your development team to make changes and refactor code with more confident, as they can quickly verify the functionality of the application after every change.
However, actually building automated tests for web applications can be challenging because the user interface of your application might change regularly, because of incompatibilities between browsers and because you usually need to support various server or client platforms. The following tools make it easier to build and execute automated tests for your web application.
Selenium
Selenium is a popular automated web testing tool and helps you automate web browsers across different platforms. Selenium has the support of some of the largest browser vendors who have taken steps to make Selenium a native part of their browser.
Watir
Watir is a set of Ruby libraries for automating web browsers and allows you to write tests that are easy to read and maintain. Watir drives browsers the same way people do (it clicks links, fills in forms, presses buttons etc.) and also checks results such as whether expected text appears on the page.
Windmill
Windmill is a web testing tool designed to help testers automate and debug web applications. It comes with a cross-browser test recorder, JavaScript integration and an interactive shell to automate web browsers.
Ranorex
Ranorex allows you to automate your web application testing (among other things) and both record user interactions and play them back to execute your tests. Ranorex is one of the more popular commercial tools to build and run automated web and GUI tests.
SoapUI
SoapUI is a cross-platform functional testing tool. It has been specifically designed to help automatically test APIs such as SOAP and REST interfaces to ensure the interoperability of different applications.
Sahi
Sahi is a tool for automation of web application testing. Sahi is available as a free open source edition as well as a commercial Pro edition.
Tellurium
Tellurium is a web automation tool that allows you to design and write your automated tests using plain English without any scripting or programming experience.
Automated GUI Testing Tools 5 Tools
Building robust automated GUI tests for desktop applications (e.g. on Windows or Mac systems) is quite difficult, as small changes to the user interface can often result in broken tests. The following tools help you build and execute robust GUI tests for various platforms and operating systems.
Squish
Common Automated Software Testing Tools
Squish is a GUI testing tool for various platforms, including QT, native Windows and Mac applications. Squish allows testers and developers to build automated tests using familiar scripting languages such as JavaScript, Perl, Python and Ruby.
Ranorex
Ranorex allows you to automate your desktop applications (among other things) and both record user interactions and play them back to execute your tests. Ranorex is one of the more popular commercial tools to build and run automated GUI and web tests.
TestComplete
TestComplete is an automated testing tool for the Windows platform. It allows you to record, script and run GUI tests for applications built using different frameworks and languages, such as .NET or C++.
Test Studio
Test Studio is an automated functional and load testing tool that helps you test applications on various platforms built using different frameworks and tools.
eggPlant
eggPlant is a GUI test automation tool for professional software applications and enterprise teams. It can be used to automate different application types, such as .NET, Java and Flash applications.
Unit Testing Frameworks 9 Tools
See below for a list of popular unit testing frameworks and tools for major platforms and programming languages. These frameworks can be used by programmers to test specific functionality in libraries and applications. Unit tests can then be used to automatically test new versions and builds as part of an automated build system or deployment process.
NUnit
NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. It was initially ported from JUnut to .NET and has been redesigned to take advantage of many .NET language features.
xUnit.net
xUnit.net is a community-focused unit testing tool for the .NET Framework written by the original inventor of NUnit. xUnit.net is the latest technology for unit testing C#, F#, VB.NET and other .NET languages.
PyUnit / unittest
The Python unit testing framework, sometimes referred to as 'PyUnit', is a Python language version of JUnit. It's part of the Python framework and supports test automation, sharing of setup and shutdown code for tests and various other features.
JUnit
JUnit is a simple unit testing framework to write repeatable tests in Java. JUnit has been important in the development of test-driven development and is one of the standard testing frameworks for Java developers.
TestNG
TestNG is a Java testing framework inspired by JUnit and NUnit and introduces some new functionalities that make it more powerful and easier to use. TestNG is designed to cover multiple categories of tests, including unit, functional, end-to-end and integration tests.
PHPUnit
PHPUnit is a popular framework for unit testing in PHP projects. It provides both a framework that makes it easier to write tests as well as the functionality to easily run, execute and analyze tests and results.
Symfony Lime
Lime is a unit and functional testing framework built for the popular Symfony PHP web application framework. The framework is designed to have readable output from tests, including color formatting, by following the Test Anything Protocol.
Test::Unit
Ruby comes with its own standard unit testing framework as part of the Test::Unit namespace and can be used to define basic pass/fail tests and group tests. The framework also comes with tools to run single or whole groups of tests.
RSpec
RSpec is a testing tool for the Ruby programming language. Born under the banner of behaviour-driven development, it is designed to make test-driven development more productive and enjoyable.
Automated Testing Cloud Services
Cloud testing services allow you to run your automated web, mobile and unit tests in different environments and on multiple machines without having to build your own testing infrastructure. The below list of services provides a good overview of popular online Selenium and continuous integration services that are easy and affordable to use.
Service | Type | Description | Pricing |
---|---|---|---|
Sauce Labs | Selenium & Mobile | Cross-browser Selenium & mobile testing | Starting @ $149/month |
TestingBot | Selenium | Cross-browser Selenium testing | Starting @ $40/month |
Gridlastic | Selenium | Cross-browser Selenium testing | Starting @ Free |
CircleCI | Continuous Integration | Continuous integration service & unit testing | Starting @ $19/month |
Tddium | Continuous Integration | Continuous integration service & unit testing | Starting @ $15/month |
CloudBees | Continuous Integration | Continuous integration service & unit testing | Starting @ Free |
Mailosaur | Email Testing | Service to integrate emails in automated tests | Starting @ Free |
Software Test Automation Books 6 Books
The following books provide a good starting point to learn more about automated software testing in general, test-driven and behavior-driven development as well as integrating automated tests into your overall testing strategy.
Test Driven Development: By Example
Quite simply, test-driven development is meant to eliminate fear in application development. While some fear is healthy (often viewed as a conscience that tells programmers to 'be careful!'), the author believes that byproducts of fear include tentative, grumpy, and uncommunicative programmers who are unable to absorb constructive criticism.
Selenium Testing Tools Cookbook
Selenium Testing Tools Cookbook is an incremental guide that will help you learn and use advanced features of Selenium WebDriver API in various situations for building reliable test automation. You will learn how to effectively use features of Selenium using simple and detailed examples. This book will also teach you best practices, design patterns, and how to extend Selenium.
Software Test Automation
This book describes how to build and implement an automated testing regime for software development. It presents a detailed account of the principles of automated testing, practical techniques for designing a good automated testing regime, and advice on choosing and applying off-the-shelf testing tools to specific needs. This sound and practical introduction to automated testing comes from two authors well known for their seminars, consultancy and training in the field.
Just Enough Software Test Automation
Just Enough Test Automation shows test developers and users how to design, implement, and manage software test automation. Learn from authors Dan Mosley and Bruce Posey how to implement a powerfuls a huge number of online resources to help you get started with test automation and test-driven development. We researched the best articles and online resources and please see the list of links below.
A guide for test automation
Software Testing has found its place in the software industry, with more and more organizations understanding the crucial role that it plays in quality software production. This article explains test automation strategies and approaches for software teams.
10 (Sometimes Painful) Lessons Learned from Test Automation
This presentation explains how eBay's quality engineering team uses automated testing in different projects and within different development methodologies (such as agile, waterfall, distributed etc.) and the lessons they learned.
What are the disadvantages of automated testing?
This is a very useful discussion about the (possible) drawbacks and disadvantages of automated testing and covers areas such as programmer productivity, tools cost, skill level, organizational challenges and more.
Introduction to Test Driven Development
This is an in-depth article about test-driven development (TDD), explains the pros and cons of TDD and contains additional links to related tools and resources. The article also tries to explain and clarify typical misconceptions of TDD and explains why and when teams should adapt test-driven development for their projects.
When to Automate Testing?
This article tries to explain when (and when not) to automate your software tests and provides a useful list of criteria. The article also discusses the need to spend testing efforts wisely to find the most important software defects.
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Test Automation
In software testing, test automation is the use of special software (separate from the software being tested) to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes. Test automation can automate some repetitive but necessary tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or add additional testing that would be difficult to perform manually.
Keywords
- test automation
- test automation software
- test automation tools
- automated testing tools
- automated testing software
Software development |
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Core activities |
Paradigms and models |
Methodologies and frameworks |
Supporting disciplines |
Practices |
Tools |
Standards and Bodies of Knowledge |
Glossaries |
In software testing, test automation is the use of software separate from the software being tested to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes.[1] Test automation can automate some repetitive but necessary tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or perform additional testing that would be difficult to do manually. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing.
There are many approaches to test automation, however below are the general approaches used widely:
- Graphical user interface testing. A testing framework that generates user interface events such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, and observes the changes that result in the user interface, to validate that the observable behavior of the program is correct.
- API driven testing. A testing framework that uses a programming interface to the application to validate the behaviour under test. Typically API driven testing bypasses application user interface altogether. It can also be testing public (usually) interfaces to classes, modules or libraries are tested with a variety of input arguments to validate that the results that are returned are correct.
One way to generate test cases automatically is model-based testing through use of a model of the system for test case generation, but research continues into a variety of alternative methodologies for doing so.[citation needed] In some cases, the model-based approach enables non-technical users to create automated business test cases in plain English so that no programming of any kind is needed in order to configure them for multiple operating systems, browsers, and smart devices.[2]
What to automate, when to automate, or even whether one really needs automation are crucial decisions which the testing (or development) team must make.[3] A multi-vocal literature review of 52 practitioner and 26 academic sources found that five main factors to consider in test automation decision are: 1) System Under Test (SUT), 2) the types and numbers of tests, 3) test-tool, 4) human and organizational topics, and 5) cross-cutting factors. The most frequent individual factors identified in the study were: need for regression testing, economic factors, and maturity of SUT.[4]
A growing trend in software development is the use of unit testing frameworks such as the xUnit frameworks (for example, JUnit and NUnit) that allow the execution of unit tests to determine whether various sections of the code are acting as expected under various circumstances. Test cases describe tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program runs as expected.
Test automation, mostly using unit testing, is a key feature of extreme programming and agile software development, where it is known as test-driven development (TDD) or test-first development. Unit tests can be written to define the functionality before the code is written. However, these unit tests evolve and are extended as coding progresses, issues are discovered and the code is subjected to refactoring.[5] Only when all the tests for all the demanded features pass is the code considered complete. Proponents argue that it produces software that is both more reliable and less costly than code that is tested by manual exploration.[citation needed] It is considered more reliable because the code coverage is better, and because it is run constantly during development rather than once at the end of a waterfall development cycle. The developer discovers defects immediately upon making a change, when it is least expensive to fix. Finally, code refactoring is safer when unit testing is used; transforming the code into a simpler form with less code duplication, but equivalent behavior, is much less likely to introduce new defects when the refactored code is covered by unit tests.
Some software testing tasks (such as extensive low-level interface regression testing) can be laborious and time-consuming to do manually. In addition, a manual approach might not always be effective in finding certain classes of defects. Test automation offers a possibility to perform these types of testing effectively.
Once automated tests have been developed, they can be run quickly and repeatedly. Many times, this can be a cost-effective method for regression testing of software products that have a long maintenance life. Even minor patches over the lifetime of the application can cause existing features to break which were working at an earlier point in time.
Test automation tools can be expensive and are usually employed in combination with manual testing. Test automation can be made cost-effective in the long term, especially when used repeatedly in regression testing. A good candidate for test automation is a test case for common flow of an application, as it is required to be executed (regression testing) every time an enhancement is made in the application. Test automation reduces the effort associated with manual testing. Manual effort is needed to develop and maintain automated checks, as well as reviewing test results.
In automated testing, the test engineer or software quality assurance person must have software coding ability since the test cases are written in the form of source code which when run produce output according to the assertions that are a part of it. Some test automation tools allow for test authoring to be done by keywords instead of coding, which do not require programming.
- 4Framework approach in automation
API driven testing[edit]
API testing is also being widely used by software testers due to the difficulty of creating and maintaining GUI-based automation testing. It involves directly testing APIs as part of integration testing, to determine if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security.[6] Since APIs lack a GUI, API testing is performed at the message layer.[7] API testing is considered critical when an API serves as the primary interface to application logic since GUI tests can be difficult to maintain with the short release cycles and frequent changes commonly used with agile software development and DevOps.[8][9]
Continuous testing[edit]
Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.[10][11] For Continuous Testing, the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.[12]
Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing[edit]
![Automated Software Testing Tools List Automated Software Testing Tools List](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Test_Automation_Interface.png)
Many test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to interactively record user actions and replay them back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected. The advantage of this approach is that it requires little or no software development. This approach can be applied to any application that has a graphical user interface. However, reliance on these features poses major reliability and maintainability problems. Relabelling a button or moving it to another part of the window may require the test to be re-recorded. Record and playback also often adds irrelevant activities or incorrectly records some activities.[citation needed]
A variation on this type of tool is for testing of web sites. Here, the 'interface' is the web page. However, such a framework utilizes entirely different techniques because it is rendering HTML and listening to DOM Events instead of operating system events. Headless browsers or solutions based on Selenium Web Driver are normally used for this purpose.[13][14][15]
Another variation of this type of test automation tool is for testing mobile applications. This is very useful given the number of different sizes, resolutions, and operating systems used on mobile phones. For this variation, a framework is used in order to instantiate actions on the mobile device and to gather results of the actions.[16][better source needed]
Another variation is script-less test automation that does not use record and playback, but instead builds a model[clarification needed] of the application and then enables the tester to create test cases by simply inserting test parameters and conditions, which requires no scripting skills.
Framework approach in automation[edit]
A test automation framework is an integrated system that sets the rules of automation of a specific product. This system integrates the function libraries, test data sources, object details and various reusable modules. These components act as small building blocks which need to be assembled to represent a business process. The framework provides the basis of test automation and simplifies the automation effort.
The main advantage of a framework of assumptions, concepts and tools that provide support for automated software testing is the low cost for maintenance. If there is change to any test case then only the test case file needs to be updated and the driver Script and startup script will remain the same. Ideally, there is no need to update the scripts in case of changes to the application.
Choosing the right framework/scripting technique helps in maintaining lower costs. The costs associated with test scripting are due to development and maintenance efforts. The approach of scripting used during test automation has effect on costs.
Various framework/scripting techniques are generally used:
- Linear (procedural code, possibly generated by tools like those that use record and playback)
- Structured (uses control structures - typically ‘if-else’, ‘switch’, ‘for’, ‘while’ conditions/ statements)
- Data-driven (data is persisted outside of tests in a database, spreadsheet, or other mechanism)
- Hybrid (two or more of the patterns above are used)
- Agile automation framework
The Testing framework is responsible for:[17]
- defining the format in which to express expectations
- creating a mechanism to hook into or drive the application under test
- executing the tests
- reporting results
Test automation interface[edit]
Test automation interface are platforms that provide a single workspace for incorporating multiple testing tools and frameworks for System/Integration testing of application under test. The goal of Test Automation Interface is to simplify the process of mapping tests to business criteria without coding coming in the way of the process. Test automation interface are expected to improve the efficiency and flexibility of maintaining test scripts.[18]
Test Automation Interface consists of the following core modules:
- Interface Engine
- Interface Environment
- Object Repository
Interface engine[edit]
Interface engines are built on top of Interface Environment. Interface engine consists of a parser and a test runner. The parser is present to parse the object files coming from the object repository into the test specific scripting language. The test runner executes the test scripts using a test harness.[18]
Object repository[edit]
Object repositories are a collection of UI/Application object data recorded by the testing tool while exploring the application under test.[18]
Defining boundaries between automation framework and a testing tool[edit]
Tools are specifically designed to target some particular test environment, such as Windows and web automation tools, etc. Tools serve as a driving agent for an automation process. However, an automation framework is not a tool to perform a specific task, but rather infrastructure that provides the solution where different tools can do their job in a unified manner. This provides a common platform for the automation engineer.
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There are various types of frameworks. They are categorized on the basis of the automation component they leverage. These are:
- Code-driven testing
What to test[edit]
Testing tools can help automate tasks such as product installation, test data creation, GUI interaction, problem detection (consider parsing or polling agents equipped with test oracles), defect logging, etc., without necessarily automating tests in an end-to-end fashion.
![Automated Software Testing Tools List Automated Software Testing Tools List](https://www.joecolantonio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UItimateAutomationTestingToolsGuide-220x220.png)
One must keep satisfying popular requirements when thinking of test automation:
- Platform and OS independence
- Data driven capability (Input Data, Output Data, Metadata)
- Customization Reporting (DB Data Base Access, Crystal Reports)
- Easy debugging and logging
- Version control friendly – minimal binary files
- Extensible & Customization (Open APIs to be able to integrate with other tools)
- Common Driver (For example, in the Java development ecosystem, that means Ant or Maven and the popular IDEs). This enables tests to integrate with the developers' workflows.
- Support unattended test runs for integration with build processes and batch runs. Continuous integration servers require this.
- Email Notifications like bounce messages
- Support distributed execution environment (distributed test bed)
- Distributed application support (distributed SUT)
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Automated Software Testing Tools List
![Free automated software testing tools Free automated software testing tools](https://www.cigniti.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/List-of-101-Test-Automation-tools-to-meet-your-testing-objectives-2.jpg)
- ^Kolawa, Adam; Huizinga, Dorota (2007). Automated Defect Prevention: Best Practices in Software Management. Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press. p. 74. ISBN978-0-470-04212-0.
- ^Proceedings from the 5th International Conference on Software Testing and Validation (ICST). Software Competence Center Hagenberg. 'Test Design: Lessons Learned and Practical Implications. doi:10.1109/IEEESTD.2008.4578383. ISBN978-0-7381-5746-7.
- ^Brian Marick. 'When Should a Test Be Automated?'. StickyMinds.com. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
- ^Garousi, Vahid; Mäntylä, Mika V. (2016-08-01). 'When and what to automate in software testing? A multi-vocal literature review'. Information and Software Technology. 76: 92–117. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2016.04.015.
- ^Learning Test-Driven Development by Counting Lines; Bas Vodde & Lasse Koskela; IEEE Software Vol. 24, Issue 3, 2007
- ^Testing APIs protects applications and reputations, by Amy Reichert, SearchSoftwareQuality March 2015
- ^All About API Testing: An Interview with Jonathan Cooper, by Cameron Philipp-Edmonds, Stickyminds August 19, 2014
- ^The Forrester Wave™ Evaluation Of Functional Test Automation (FTA) Is Out And It's All About Going Beyond GUI Testing, by Diego Lo Giudice, Forrester April 23, 2015
- ^Produce Better Software by Using a Layered Testing Strategy, by Sean Kenefick, Gartner January 7, 2014
- ^Part of the Pipeline: Why Continuous Testing Is Essential, by Adam Auerbach, TechWell Insights August 2015
- ^The Relationship between Risk and Continuous Testing: An Interview with Wayne Ariola, by Cameron Philipp-Edmonds, Stickyminds December 2015
- ^DevOps: Are You Pushing Bugs to Clients Faster, by Wayne Ariola and Cynthia Dunlop, PNSQC October 2015
- ^Headless Testing with Browsers; https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/gui-and-headless-browsers/
- ^Headless Testing with PhantomJS;http://phantomjs.org/headless-testing.html
- ^Automated User Interface Testing; https://www.devbridge.com/articles/automated-user-interface-testing/
- ^Testmunk. 'A Beginner's Guide to Automated Mobile App Testing | Testmunk Blog'. blog.testmunk.com. Retrieved 2015-09-17.
- ^'Selenium Meet-Up 4/20/2010 Elisabeth Hendrickson on Robot Framework 1of2'. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
- ^ abc'Conquest: Interface for Test Automation Design'(PDF). Retrieved 2011-12-11.
- Notes
- Elfriede Dustin; et al. (1999). Automated Software Testing. Addison Wesley. ISBN978-0-201-43287-9.
- Elfriede Dustin; et al. (2009). Implementing Automated Software Testing. Addison Wesley. ISBN978-0-321-58051-1.
- Mark Fewster & Dorothy Graham (1999). Software Test Automation. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley. ISBN978-0-201-33140-0.
- Roman Savenkov: How to Become a Software Tester. Roman Savenkov Consulting, 2008, ISBN978-0-615-23372-7
- Hong Zhu; et al. (2008). AST '08: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Automation of Software Test. ACM Press. ISBN978-1-60558-030-2.
- Mosley, Daniel J.; Posey, Bruce (2002). Just Enough Software Test Automation. ISBN978-0130084682.
- Hayes, Linda G., 'Automated Testing Handbook', Software Testing Institute, 2nd Edition, March 2004
- Kaner, Cem, 'Architectures of Test Automation', August 2000
Top Software Testing Tools
External links[edit]
- Test Automation Snake Oil by James Bach
- When Should a Test Be Automated? by Brian Marick
- Success Factors for Keyword Driven Testing by Hans Buwalda
- Automation That Learns: Making Your Computer Work for You by Jeremy Carey-Dressler
- Automation Testing Resources & Best Practices by Joe Colantonio