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Top 10 Regression Testing Best Practices

TestingNews — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:33:36 +0000

Regression testing is critical to ensure that new code updates did not negatively affect existing functionalities. However, not all QA teams are managing regression testing the right way.

In this article, we list the top 10 regression testing best practices to help you achieve better efficiency:

1. Integrate Regression Tests into CI/CD Early

Run regression tests automatically at the pull request or pre-merge stage. This ensures that regressions are caught before they reach staging or production. The earlier defects are found, the lower the cost.

Use CI tools like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps to integrate test execution into your pipeline. Fail builds on critical test failures and generate clear, actionable feedback for developers.

2. Isolate the System Under Test (SUT)

Testing in a shared or unstable environment leads to inconsistent results and hard-to-reproduce bugs. Isolating the system under test and mocking dependencies helps you reduce test flakiness and increase confidence that failures are related to your code, not external factors.

Here are some tips:

Use Docker or WebApplicationFactory to spin up isolated test environments
Mock third-party APIs, external services, databases, and authentication layers
Ensure the environment mirrors production configs (e.g., headers, timeouts)
Run tests in parallel to simulate concurrent usage without side effects

3. Focus Your Regression Testing Based on Risk

Testing every feature is time-consuming and not always necessary. Instead, focus on the areas most likely to break or have the biggest impact if they fail. This includes features with complex logic, areas that change often, or parts that are critical to users.

Identify high-risk modules using past bugs and system complexity
Review recent commits to see what changed and where
Involve devs and product owners to help define risk areas
Allocate more regression coverage to risky zones

4. Rotate Your Test Coverage

Running every test in every release wastes time. Instead, keep a full library of test cases and rotate through them across releases. Run the most important tests every time and cycle through the others regularly to maintain broad coverage.

Tag test cases by priority and frequency (e.g., run always, run every 2 releases)
Create test plans based on tags and rotate them over sprints
Review rotation strategy during sprint planning or retrospectives

For example, in Katalon TestOps, you can assign tags to test cases for better management, which can later be filtered to fit your test execution needs.

5. Prioritize Tests Around New Features

New features are where things often break. Focus regression testing around what was just built or updated and anything connected to it. This helps you catch issues early and reduce test bloat.

Review feature requirements and implementation areas
Map which existing components are affected by new changes
Update regression plans to include only relevant test cases

6. Use Metrics to Decide When to Stop

Testing endlessly without knowing when to stop is inefficient. Instead, use bug discovery rates and test pass trends to decide when you're done. If you’re finding fewer bugs and everything’s stable, it may be time to wrap up.

Track bug rates per test cycle
Set thresholds for bug counts or failure rates to guide test exit
Monitor time-to-detect metrics and test result trends

A test report should include the following sections:

*Project information: * In this part you should briefly describe the testing project and its objectives. Explain the purpose of the report if needed.
*Test summary: * This section is essentially an abstract where you provide a quick summary of the key findings from the test. Most common metrics to be reported here are the number of test cases executed, passed or failed tests, and any notable bugs found.
*Test result: * This section is an expansion of the former, where you go into greater detail regarding each bug. You list the test case ID, what the test case is about, and what bug was found. You also include screenshots or detailed descriptions of the sequence of events triggering the bug if needed.

This section typically includes some visualizations in the form of charts and diagrams to better communicate with nontechnical stakeholders. The pie charts below demonstrate the percentage of passed/failed test cases in a test run in Katalon TestOps.

7. Analyze Bug Reports to Improve Coverage

Past bugs can show you where your tests are weak. Look at production issues or support tickets to find patterns, and add more regression coverage in those spots.

Review support tickets and production incident logs regularly
Identify frequently failing modules or common error types
Add test cases for the root causes of past incidents

8. Use Unit Tests and Code Coverage to Guide Effort

Unit tests catch issues early and cheaply. Use code coverage tools to find untested paths, and focus regression testing on areas with low coverage. This gives you better quality without redundant testing.

Check coverage reports with tools like JaCoCo, Coverlet, or Istanbul
Fill in gaps by writing new tests or expanding regression suites
Collaborate with devs to enforce and monitor coverage targets

9. Start Small With Automation and Grow

If you don’t have automated regression tests yet, don’t try to do everything at once. Start with the most critical workflows and build up over time. This reduces the pressure and makes your test suite easier to scale.

Start with login, checkout, or other high-traffic flows
Build a reusable framework from the beginning
Add one new automated test per sprint or story

10. Mix Manual and Automated Regression Tests

Not everything needs to be automated immediately. Use manual tests for exploratory checks or less stable features, and automate the rest. This gives you better coverage with less effort.

Define which tests should be manual vs automated
Create a lean but high-value manual regression checklist
Gradually replace manual cases with automation

📚 *Resources: * How To Calculate The Tangible & Intangible Value of Test Automation?

From Manual to Automation: 5 Essential Steps

TestingNews — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 07:19:50 +0000

Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing

Being a manual tester is a mentally-taxing career. It is basically part of the job to be stressed out by the number of tests and stretched thin by tight deadlines. In the middle of this chaos, have you ever wondered ”Shouldn’t this huge amount of tests be automated?”.

How to Switch From Manual to Automation Testing

Manual testers should weigh on the benefits of test automation over manual testing and start the transition now. To start, see our 5-step guide below.

Step 1: Find Suitable Test Cases to Automate

Test automation exerts its utmost importance in repetitive tests. You can find the list of the most suitable test types to be automated in this table below.

Test types	How automation helps
Regression tests (including unit and end-to-end tests)	Reduce the workload and help increase the confidence level in the application under test after each update.
Acceptance tests	Should be automated with a tool that supports cross-browser/platform testing to enhance performance consistency.
API tests	Test automation helps detect bugs earlier by setting off API regression test with every API adjustment.

Step 2: Find the Compatible Tools or Frameworks

Open-source frameworks/libraries have decreased sharply in popularity since teams are adopting commercial tools. The tool selection process requires you to be mindful of your resources and testing goals. Use the list of questions below to help you make the decision.

Does it have the required features and support native integration with your pipelines?
Is it adaptable for both manual/automated QAs and Devs?
Will there be technical support and training when needed?
Is it easy to maintain scripts and reuse test assets?
Is it compatible with your budget?

_ Essential tool list: Top 10 Open-source Testing Tools _

Step 3: Manage the Tool Development Process

This step is critical for those who develop their testing tool from an open-source framework/library. A test automation development strategy should include:

A vision that keeps you committed to the tool objectives
The business values of your automation tool
The design, features, and list of automation items of the framework/tool
The timeline and process of test scripting and execution

Step 4: Generate-Execute-Report-Maintain

Test types	Open-source frameworks/libraries	Commercial tools
Test generation	Flexible in programming languages Requires a dedicated development team	Dual-editor interface (low/full-code) Suitable for manual testers
Test execution	* Cross-browser/device/platform testing support is a must-have * Required a minimum number of tools involved to limit maintenance effort
Test reporting	Requires third-party software	Built-in report generator, intelligent analytics
Test maintenance	Needs significant effort	Page Object Model design allows object storage in one repository so that update can happen simultaneously.

Step 5: Monitor the Automation Tool’s Effectiveness

To ensure that your tool is beneficial and capable of fulfilling your testing goals, you need some metrics to help you evaluate. See our suggestions below:

Has execution time been reduced?
How much time did you spend updating/rewriting tests when changes occurred?
Has execution time for a specific test lengthened over time?
Have you been able to cut down the development time for the testing tools? (for self-built tool only)

Conclusion

With test automation, testers have more time for edge cases, product managers have their deadlines met, and clients have their shiny final product. For manual-going-automation testers, the benefits of test automation are even greater with a suitable tool. Katalon Studio is a low-code, free and scalable automation solution for manual QAs to kick-start the first automation project immediately.

The post From Manual to Automation: 5 Essential Steps appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Announcing Katalon TestCloud | Cloud-based Cross-Browser Testing in The Katalon Platform

TestingNews — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:37:47 +0000

Today, software applications need to deliver a consistent and reliable experience across multiple browsers, operating systems, and devices. To accomplish this, companies are spending valuable resources and time manually deploying dedicated test infrastructures. This translates into a limited availability of test scenarios and prevents companies from generating enough test coverage to ensure the best user experience across the most commonly used platforms.

Testing across browsers and operating systems is difficult. Testers are usually bogged down by limited access to testing environments or waiting for IT to deploy ad-hoc testing infrastructures. Continuing to build on the promise to offer a swift testing experience to our community of users, today we are proud to announce the release of the trial version of Katalon TestCloud.

Katalon TestCloud is a cloud-hosted solution that provides on-demand, flexible, and secure multi-browser testing environments. TestCloud enables QA teams and developers to execute automated test scripts simultaneously across multiple browsers and operating systems, without having to set up or maintain physical testing resources or third-party configurations.

All from Within The Katalon Platform

Up to this point, teams have used Studio and TestOps to design, orchestrate, and gain insights from their tests. With TestCloud, teams have access to the complete Katalon platform where they have a full testing experience and can deploy cloud-based test environments on-demand to execute their automated tests.

We created TestCloud to provide a better, easier, quicker, and simpler way to adopt and scale best practices for testing across browsers and operating systems, all from within the Katalon platform. TestCloud provides better speed and simplicity compared to other third-party cloud-based test environments.

Expand your testing possibilities from Studio

Studio (free and paid) users now have access to all the available features and test environments that TestCloud has to offer. Regardless of the size of their teams or their testing maturity level, TestCloud has been designed to give access to a wide variety of testing environments to all users.

Its native integration with the rest of the Katalon platform makes it easy for Studio users to author their automated scripts and then execute them in TestCloud in just a few clicks.

Once available, Studio users will notice a new icon on their UI. You can select TestCloud from the execution dropdown menu or directly from the toolbar.

_ Note : TestCloud will be available only for Test Suites and Test Suite collections._

Next, select the TestCloud configuration that you want to use for the execution of the Script.

At this point, you will be able to select the operating system you want to use and the browser and browser version that you want.

If you are doing private testing, you can also enable the “Execute with Tunel” option. At this point, you should be ready to run the test and wait for the results. It is that simple!

Thanks to the seamless integration between Studio and TestCloud, users can run Test Suites and Test Suite Collections to test privately accessed domains or public domains on virtual environments provided by TestCloud. To learn more about how to use TestCloud to execute your Studio scripts, check out the product documentation, and stay tuned for more updates about newly supported scripts and environments.

Orchestrate using TestOps

TestOps users also will be able to leverage the advantages of testing on the cloud. By simply selecting the environment they would like to use to test their scripts, TestOps users can request any available environment on-demand from TestCloud and schedule its execution as usual.

To use TestCloud from TestOps, users will follow the usual path to schedule a run, with the only difference that now they will be able to see the option to run the test on a TestCloud environment.

Here they also can select details about the configuration such as browser, version, operating system and private testing tunnel configuration.

Once everything is set, they will be ready to go. It is that simple! No extra configurations needed. To learn more about how to use TestCloud from TestOps please check out the product documentation.

Enterprise Standards

Easy to deploy and use – It provides immediate access to testing environments on-demand without the need to manually deploy and maintain testing infrastructures.
Open and flexible – Natively integrated into Katalon, TestCloud gives QA teams and developers the flexibility and scalability required to handle ever-changing ecosystems, processes, and business needs.
Safe and secure – TestCloud offers enterprise-grade security built-in at every step of the testing pipeline.

Availability

The trial version of TestCloud will be available starting this January 20th until April 6th. TestOps users will automatically see the TestCloud option on their scheduling UI while Studio users will need to update to the latest version.

Conclusion

The focal point of TestCloud is to provide the easiest test experience within the Katalon platform where users can deploy test environments without having to worry about setting up and maintaining dedicated test infrastructures or cumbersome third-party configurations.

We are very excited about this new release and we hope you are too! For a complete list of the new features, improvements, and fixes, please visit the release notes.

As always, please post any questions, ideas, or concerns on our community site. We are eager to hear from you.

The post Announcing Katalon TestCloud | Cloud-based Cross-Browser Testing in The Katalon Platform appeared first on Katalon Solution.

The State of Quality Report 2022 | The Next Stepping Stone of Software Testing

TestingNews — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 10:09:43 +0000

The software testing field is ever-changing to accommodate the demand for high-quality software. At the start of the new year, let’s go through the main findings of The State Of Quality Report 2022 to keep an eye on the latest software testing trends.

Shift-left is the Current Testing Trend.

In our report, the most cited struggles of delivering high-quality software are frequent requirement changes (46%) and lack of time (39%). Insufficient time and regular requirements changes are significant setbacks for testers, leaving them no bandwidth to practice more in-depth testing. To mitigate this roadblock, teams have been shifting-left - monitor and test earlier in production. Despite being a powerful tool to support this practice, only 51% of our respondents said they had implemented automation in testing.

Test Automation is Worth the Investment.

A whopping 63% of respondents reported that they had experienced 20% or more cost/time-saving by adopting automation. The inconvenience in the set-up phase is worth it in the long run if teams are willing to commit. The effectiveness in time/cost saving of automation might be why the popularity of open-source tools, such as Selenium, has declined 50% in 3 years. On the other hand, frameworks such as KS and Perfecto, which require minimal building and maintenance effort, are on the rise.

AI Testing is the Next Big Thing in Automation.

AI adoption is still low among QA teams. Less than 50% of our respondents had used AI in their testing process. At the moment, its maturity is only sufficient for simple script generation and screen comparison. Most tools are currently not AI-supportive. As a result, implementing AI means introducing a collection of new tools to the system. However, the future of AI testing is fruitful as the technology becomes more comprehensive, according to our interviewees.

Our Recommendation for the QA Community in 2022

Automation has emerged as a vital component in Agile and DevOps. Align with the 59% of respondents; we think it is crucial to improve the adoption of automation in testing. Fully invested and committed automation will eventually lead to better QA processes and practices, which is the common goal in 2022 for 67% of our respondents.

Get our free report for more practical objectives and testing trends to better software quality in 2022.

Announcing Katalon TestOps January 2022 Release

TestingNews — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 14:35:35 +0000

Happy New Year Katalians!

We hope you had a great holiday season and have enjoyed a productive start to 2022. Here at Katalon, we’ve been hard at work preparing the first 2022 release of TestOps. This release includes support for the public release of Katalon TestCloud and test suite creation and execution from within TestOps. Read on to learn more.

TestCloud GA & TestOps Integration

Start Your TestCloud GA Trial from TestOps

TestOps users are now able to try TestCloud, Katalon’s cloud-based SaaS automated test execution solution. TestCloud allows customers to go from zero to multiple parallel test execution pipelines to expedite automated testing execution and reduce the pressure to limit/reduce quality testing, or worse delay software releases, due to resource constraints or time.

Test Execution

Reload Script Repo Contents

Users often need to refresh/reload the latest changes from their script repository in order to run the latest version of an automated test. Users can now update their test scripts from their script repository from three different areas within TestOps:

Test Management
Script Repository
Schedule Test Run

Integrations

Support for the Leading Git Repository Providers

We’ve added additional support for the leading Git-based source code management providers. You can now integrate TestOps into your provider of choice and elevate your TestOps processes. Managing your test scripts in a repository versus a file location is a critical step in elevating your ability to work within DevOps pipelines.

When a user integrates a supported script repository, they will be able to:

Browse the test cases and test suites of a Katalon Studio project in that script repo in Test Management.
Select a test suite/collection directly from a dropdown list to schedule a test run.
Create a new test suite using test scripts from that script repo and execute it on their chosen environments on TestOps.

Updated list of supported repositories:

GitHub
Bitbucket
GitLab
Azure Repos
Coming soon (Q1 2022): Amazon CodeCommit

Test Suite Management Updates

Test Suite Creation and Execution in TestOps

In previous releases, in order to execute a collection of test cases on TestOps, the user needed to create (1) a test suite out of those test cases, (2) a test suite collection in Katalon Studio using that test suite, then (3) push to the script repository, and (4) refresh the repository on TestOps, and finally (5) schedule a test run using the test suite collection.

With this release, the same process takes only two steps: (1) users can now create a new test suite using test cases from an integrated script repo directly in TestOps, and (2) then use the new test suite to schedule test runs. This greatly simplifies and centralizes test suite management within TestOps, and allows for greater collaboration between QA and DevOps teams.

Test Suite Directory View

In previous TestOps releases, test suites were extracted from test execution data and displayed in a “flat list.” Essentially, there was no way to navigate a folder structure of the test suites. A new Test Suite Directory view has been added to the Test Suite view that delivers an improved user experience for viewing and navigating test suites.

Before:

After:

Wrapping Up

We are planning some amazing improvements and new capabilities for TestOps and the Katalon Platform in 2022. We hope you find the updates in this release both useful and helpful in enabling your teams to be more collaborative and productive.

For a complete list of the new features, improvements, and fixes, please visit the release notes.

As always, please post any questions, ideas, or concerns in our community. We are eager to hear from you.

The post Announcing Katalon TestOps January 2022 Release appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Top 15 DevOps Tools for 2022 | Latest Update

TestingNews — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 11:05:50 +0000

DevOps is a practice, not a tool, but tools are needed to implement it. Breaking down walls of communication and creating visibility and trust across all the teams involved in delivering software and technology is challenging. The right tools make the automation and integrations needed across functional teams seamless, open, and scalable.

This article looks at the top CI/CD, automation, orchestration, and other DevOps pipeline tools to give you a detailed list of our Top 15 DevOps tools in 2022.

Criteria for choosing the right DevOps tools

You can’t order DevOps in a box. No one tool, and no single vendor, can provide all the capabilities needed to support a DevOps practice or their pipeline. But there are some key areas to consider when choosing tools and products for your organization's needs and specific DevOps goals. Those goals typically vary according to the organization's structure, operations, and environment.

When it comes to choosing the right tools for any given project or organization, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Application and technology infrastructure — What are your application/software platforms? What infrastructure technologies power those platforms? Can the tool work with applications and/or infrastructure hosted across cloud, local, or hybrid environments? Developer process integration — Can the tool integrate with your current development tools, IDEs, and/or ALM or project management platform?
Open and broad integration — Can the tool integrate with various DevOps pipeline technologies such as: Testing frameworks (e.g., Selenium, TestNG, Jest, JUnit, Mocha, etc.) Communication platforms (e.g., Slack, Teams, etc.) Project management systems (e.g., Jira) CI & CD (Jenkins, CircleCI, GitHub)
Easy of use, scalability — Make sure your team can easily learn and implement the tool and ensure the tool can scale as your team’s capabilities improve and your organization grows.
Licensing vs. cost models — Is the tool open source or commercial? sure to consider the costs beyond just licensing. Free tools may be free in the licensing cost but expensive in the resources needed to deploy and maintain them. Is a product licensed by the seat or by “the tick”? Simple and straightforward licensing combined with an honest approach to non-license-related operational costs make planning easier and removes future roadblocks to rolling out your DevOps pipeline across projects and teams.

Top 15 DevOps tools

TEST ORCHESTRATION

Katalon TestOps

Katalon TestOps is an orchestration platform for automated testing that unites test management, planning, execution, and quality analytics. TestOps connects the team with feedback loops that are instant, actionable, and insightful for both QA, product, and DevOps teams.

Feature highlights:

Easy-to-use UI with reporting-centric features
Seamless integration with popular testing frameworks/tools (Katalon Studio, Selenium, TestNG, JUnit, etc.) CI/CD systems (Bamboo, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, etc.) and environments (Kubernetes, Dockers, Kobiton, etc.)
Integrations with management platforms (Jira, Slack), SDK, and REST APIs that supercharge effective team collaboration
Real-time data monitoring and customizable alerts to act early on any rising issues
Full picture on quality through shareable dashboards with metrics that matter most to your team
Robust failure analysis of test cases through rich execution reports with HAR files, videos, screenshots, execution logs, error messages, and artifacts

Pricing: Free — $102/license/month

Try TestOps Free

DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It schedules workloads onto compute cluster nodes and actively manages them to ensure that their state matches the users' intentions.

Feature highlights:

Run anywhere: on-premise, hybrid, or public cloud
Automated rollouts, rollbacks, and scaling
Service Discovery and load balancing
Storage orchestration
Helm charts to deploy multiple projects with the same customized applications
Largest community among container orchestration tools

Website: kubernetes.io
Pricing: Contact sales

Docker

The Docker technology stack allows DevOps teams to create, ship, and operate container-based distributed applications. This platform enables enterprises to develop applications, exchange container images, and collaborate with users by allowing them to build programs from components.

Feature highlights:

Provide a consistent and isolated environment that is cost-effective due to its rapid deployment, trial run, and rollback capabilities.
Package applications to run in a variety of environments consistently, from on-premise to AWS, Azure, Google, etc.
Image management made simple with a private registry for storing, managing and configuring image caches as well as a public registry for sharing and collaborating with your community of users

Website: docker.com
Pricing: Free — $5/license/month

AUTOMATION TESTING

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a low-code and all-in-one test automation tool for web, API, mobile, and desktop (Windows). It is a popular alternative to replace self-built frameworks, reduce time spent creating, running, maintaining, and getting reports from automated tests.

Feature highlights:

Low-code and scripting test creation modes with Record & Playback, built-in keyword libraries, drag-and-drop, and Script Mode (Java and Groovy supported)
AssertJ support to create fluent assertions in BDD style Data-Driven Testing (Excel, CSV, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle SQL, SQL Server) and parallel execution for wider coverage
Various testing report formats (HTML, PDF, CSV, JUnit, etc.) and Report History to store and track results over time
Built-in Debugging Mode, Test Artifact/Desired Capabilities Sharing, and Test Object Refactoring for stress-free maintenance
Native CI/CD (Azure DevOps, Bamboo, Bitbucket, CircleCI, Jenkins, GitHub Action, GitLab, etc.) and ALM (Jira) integrations
Import projects from Selenium, Selenium IDE, SoapUI, Swagger (2.0 & 3.0), Postman, WSDL, and WADL
Free test automation courses and tool tutorials on Katalon Academy

Pricing: Free — $76/license/month
Download Studio Free

Ranorex Studio

Ranorex Studio is a test automation tool to test desktop, web, and mobile applications. It is simple for beginners to use but powerful for experts, thanks to its reliable capture-and-replay tool, drag-and-drop UI objects, and code modules for keyword-driven testing.

Feature highlights:

Access the Ranorex core automation framework entirely in C# and VB.NET without leaving the development environment
Utilize the comprehensive XML-based test report to view test results and monitor project progress

Website: ranorex.com
Pricing: Contact sales

CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION & DEPLOYMENT SYSTEMS (CI/CD)

Jenkins

Jenkins is a DevOps tool for monitoring the execution of repetitive tasks. It is one of the best tools for software deployment due to the hundreds of plugins available to assist with creating, delivering, and automating any project.

Feature highlights:

View builds and branches of code through a simple, clean GUI
Provide an excellent history of the build and the locations of any errors that may occur.
+2,000 plugins that simplify configuration and customization to meet specific requirements.

Website: jenkins.io
Pricing: Free

Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps is a Microsoft platform that enables the development and deployment of software using an end-to-end DevOps toolchain. Additionally, it integrates with the majority of industry-leading tools, making it a great choice for orchestrating a DevOps toolchain.

Feature highlights:

A large collection of connectors, integrations, and extensions Office 365 integration (Teams and Sharepoint)
Numerous training/documentation resources, and a sizable user community
IDE integration with MS Visual Studio
End-to-end capabilities from IDE to cloud execution

Website: microsoft.com
Pricing: Free — $200/credit

CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

Ansible

Ansible is the preferred DevOps tool for orchestration, automation, configuration, and managing IT Infrastructures. The benefits of Ansible in DevOps are to respond and scale in pace with the demand.

Feature highlights:

750+ built-in modules for automating, configuring, deploying, and orchestrating the IT infrastructure
Agentless system for easier management and storage

Website: ansible.com
Pricing: Contact sales

Chef

Chef enables users to express infrastructure, security policies, and application lifecycles as code, modernizing any application's development, packaging, and delivery to any platform.

Feature highlights:

Deploy simple or full system changes out to a large group of servers with little human interaction
Support a broad range of technologies, including difficult-to-automate legacy desktop applications.

Website: chef.io
Pricing: Contact sales

VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMS

Git

Git is a free and open-source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Feature highlights:

Provide various options for managing code repositories and collaboration between team members to manage codebases and branches
Direct integration with IDEs like Eclipse, VS Code, and IntelliJ

Website: git-scm.com
Pricing: Free

INFRASTRUCTURE-AS-A-CODE

Terraform

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure-as-a-code software tool that enables the management of hundreds of cloud services via a consistent CLI workflow.

Feature highlights:

Variables can be created to make the templates generic so that they can be reused for different environments or resources
Auto-rollback feature upon failure

Website: terraform.io
Pricing: Free — $20/user/month

BUILDS AND CODES MANAGEMENT

Gradle

Gradle Build Tool is the most popular build tool for open source JVM projects on GitHub. Many popular projects have migrated from Maven to Gradle, with Spring Boot being a prominent example.

Feature highlights:

Simply-added dependencies and plugins to facilitate multi-module builds.
Widespread adoption; included in all major integrated development environments (IDEs) such as IntelliJ idea and Eclipse
Short and clean build configurations due to the flexible DSL based on the Groovy programming language

Website: gradle.org
Pricing: Free

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT (ALM)

Jira

Jira is a well-known platform for tracking issues and managing projects. Jira is available as a SaaS solution or as an on-premises solution.

Feature highlights:

Agile software development with Scrum and Kanban boards
Utilize a drag-and-drop interface to create automation rules
Integrate seamlessly with Bitbucket, GitHub, and Microsoft Teams to automate your workflow

Website: atlassian.com
Pricing: Free — $75/month

Trello

Trello is a collaborative visual tool that helps your team develop a shared perspective on any project in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way.

Feature highlights:

A variety of board systems for specified experiments and customizations
Have multiple boards working on different projects simultaneously, each with its own set of to-dos
Collaborate in real-time with teams through dashboards, ensuring that each project receives the attention it requires

Website: trello.com
Pricing: Free — $4/user/month

Raygun

Raygun is a cloud-based platform that monitors your web and mobile applications for errors, crashes, and performance. With Raygun's robust suite of tools, teams can gain complete visibility into the issues their users encounter, down to the code level.

Feature highlights:

Simple logging tool for.NET applications
Crash Reporting and User-tracking features to help notify about real-time errors.
APM tool for application performance and the error management workflow

Website: raygun.com
Pricing: Free — $4/month

Prior to selecting the appropriate DevOps tools, it is necessary to assess the current development process requirements, needs, strengths and weaknesses, and maturity. If tools are provided by multiple providers, consideration must be given to their interoperability. It is often suggested to use an integrated suite to ensure a seamless process.

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The post Top 15 DevOps Tools for 2022 | Latest Update appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Moving At DevOps Speed With In Sprint Automation

TestingNews — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 16:01:39 +0000

From the traditional Waterfall model to more iterative approaches like Agile and DevOps, software testing is constantly evolving. And while teams have worked their way to deliver quality at speed, there seems to be something holding them back. Read on to learn about in-sprint automation and why it’s the key to moving at DevOps speed.

The Time Lag Between Dev and QA

N-1 sprint is a common approach in which testing activities start at least one sprint behind the development process, and new functionalities are tested only when they become relatively stable.

For many automation testing frameworks like Selenium WebDriver, creating and executing tests takes a considerable amount of time. Therefore, testing new functionality after some degree of product readiness is reasonable.

But N-1 sprints also bring about the time lag between testing and developing. That is, QAs often have to wait for one (or even two months) before actually exploring new functionality. And when they have something to play with, they struggle to keep up with the development pace.

If we think of it that way, N-1 sprints are more or less the replica of the traditional Waterfall model.

Breaking Teams’ Silos With In Sprint Automation

To break free from the siloed approach of N-1 sprint automation and bring team collaboration to a new level, meet in-sprint automation.

Instead of designating Devs and QAs into different sprints, in-sprint automation needles the core functions and engages the entire testing process (creation, implementation, execution, and reporting) all together in one sprint.

This one-sprint window brings forth:

Cross-functional collaboration: In-sprint breaks down the invisible siloes between Dev and Ops and ensures everyone in the team progresses simultaneously.
Earlier bug detection: In sprint introduces the opportunity to detect and fix bugs earlier in the SDLC as the automated tests will be ready at roughly the same time as ‘code complete.’ Only a handful of manual tests should be required.
Shorter release cycles and maximized test coverage: Test cycles will become significantly shorter, and test coverage can be maximized right from the first build.

Roadblocks to In Sprint Automation

If moving towards Agile and DevOps culture is your goal, shifting from N-1 sprint to in-sprint automation is one first step to get there.

However, on the path to in-sprint automation, your team might encounter some roadblocks, one of which is handling last-minute changes in test requirements.

In Agile teams, testers can use Acceptance Criteria as test requirements. Acceptance Criteria are part of a user story—a brief explanation of the customer-relevant functionality. However, the initial understanding of users and software in development might be incomplete. That’s why when teams learn something new about their users, product owners, developers, and other members get together to discuss and “upgrade” the existing user stories.

Those upgrades might lead to test requirements being changed at the very last minute. And testers are left with two options: modifying test cases or starting from scratch.

As discussed earlier, creating and running test cases for many testing frameworks is not an express delivery service, and the whole process might take as long as one to two weeks. And it’s not entirely due to the lack of technical expertise, either. Programming background and experience might play a role in modifying test cases within time constraints. But that tactic won’t compensate for the bulky test creation and execution process in any given tool or framework.

So suppose teams use frameworks like Selenium WebDriver anyway. Chances are, they will eventually have to discard the entire testing progress of user stories and carry them over to the next sprint. What happens next? Their confidence wanes out over time; testing falls far behind the development pace; they have to circle back to N-1 sprints eventually.

Admittedly, in sprint automation is not a one-size-fits-all solution, especially for teams with bulky and inflexible frameworks.

Going Fast and Lightweight With Katalon Recorder

To avoid those roadblocks to in-sprint automation, besides team skills and collaboration, finding a suitable automation solution should be your next action item.

As a robust automated testing solution, Katalon Recorder provides a fast and lightweight option to achieve in-sprint automation:

Low-code automation: Katalon Recorder supports script-less and fast automation with Record and Playback so that teams can start testing right away and progress in parallel with the development pace.

Shorter release cycles: Advanced features like Self-healing, Global Variables, and Dynamic Test Suites help testers reduce the time, effort, and risks to shorten their test cycles and maximize test coverage.

Cross-functional collaboration: Thanks to its built-in test orchestration platform – Katalon TestOps – Recorder provides quick test reporting and analytics for better communication and cross-team collaboration.

Scalable pathways: Recorder enables flexible test exporting options to other popular frameworks like Katalon Studio or Selenium WebDriver. Users can also execute imported tests with minimal effort as Recorder is also compatible with popular programming languages like C#, Java, Ruby, Robot Framework, etc.

Start In-sprint on a Good Note

To achieve in sprint automation, we have to take into consideration many factors, and picking a suitable test automation framework is among the most critical ones. In sprint automation might not be an easy call, but the benefits will be well worth the hardships.

We also have a detailed guide to quickstart with Katalon Recorder, but remember to install from the button above first!

The post Moving At DevOps Speed With In Sprint Automation appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Katalon Recorder 5.6: Smarter Test Execution with Dynamic Test Suites and Global Variables

TestingNews — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 09:51:08 +0000

Delivering quality at speed has become part of the quality assurance lexicon over the past few years. However, as manual work remains “unskippable” in different steps of our test cycles, the goal of running more tests in a shorter time might seem to be out of reach.

Today’s article will walk you through the latest features of Katalon Recorder 5.6 and explain how they help reduce manual efforts and shorten your next test cycles.

Speed Up Execution Time With Dynamic Test Suite

Imagine you are tasked to test a finance website that has recently released a new version of its Calculator with improvements and bug fixes. Out of the total 100 test cases, only five are involved in the Calculator function. What’s even trickier is that two of these five are also part of the Dashboard, yet they don’t belong to the same test suite.

Typically, you have to run all the test cases and test suites one by one. This practice is counter-intuitive as a large proportion of your tests are irrelevant to the new functionality. And, running all of them is, indeed, a waste of time.

Recorder 5.6 helps users execute selected test cases with specific tags, names, or properties through Dynamic Test Suites. Dynamic Test Suites are test suites that compute their test cases at run time using a user-provided query.

Here’s what you can do with Dynamic Test Suite from Katalon Recorder 5.6 onwards:

Add/remove tags from a particular test case in Test Case view or the context menu
Add/remove/edit tags from multiple test cases in Tag Management view
Create a Dynamic Test Suite and specify its query to filter test cases by tags
Execute a Dynamic Test Suite that executes test cases filtered by its query

For detailed guidelines on how to categorize test cases with tags and execute them in Recorder’s Dynamic Test Suite, please refer to this document.

Did you know? Dynamic Test Suite in Recorder 5.6 is yet another legacy feature of Katalon Studio. You can learn more about Dynamic Test Suite in Katalon Studio here_. _

Minimize Maintenance Efforts and Syntax Complexity With Global Variables

In test automation, there are times when different test cases require the same sets of values. With many tools, however, users have to manually replicate and modify those similar data sets. As syntaxes and test projects become more complex over time, the accumulated effort of maintaining and managing tests will eventually lead to more stress and human errors.

Katalon Recorder 5.6 allows users to pre-define values and reuse them across all test cases with Global Variables. Users can now:

Create a Profile in Test Explorer and add/delete/edit Global Variables in that Profile
Determine different Profiles as default and run the same tests with different sets of values
Set existing values/variables in a test case as Global Variables and add them to a new or an existing Profile

For details on how to create and apply Global Variables in your tests, follow this step-by-step guide.

Did you know? Global variables in Katalon Recorder are also compatible with Studio. In Studio, Global Variables are defined within an artifact called Execution Profiles_. _

Export Test Projects Seamlessly to Katalon Studio

At the beginning of the test automation journey, testing activities in small-sized teams usually revolve around developers or one dedicated QA engineer. That’s when most people would go for solutions like Katalon Recorder or Selenium IDE to kick-start test automation instantly and save as much infrastructure cost as possible.

Over time, teams might demand more than what their current tools offer, and things like complex retry logic or API testing become part of the daily conversations. In such scenarios, migrating to a more comprehensive testing framework, like Katalon Studio or Selenium WebDriver, is inevitable.

It goes without saying that an ideal migration should be fast, easy, and seamless. And to facilitate such a scenario, a given tool should satisfy both sides of the equation of easy to kick-start – able to accommodate future needs.

In Recorder 5.6, instead of migrating individual test cases to Studio, users can now export large volumes of test cases, test suites, or an entire project to Studio.

Users can zip multiple tests into a single file, download, and extract that file to Studio’s project folders. For other frameworks like Java Maven or Python, the user data is exported as a whole project.

Have a look at Katalon Recorder’s export scenarios to learn more.

Test Smarter With Recorder 5.6

We’re thrilled to introduce Katalon Recorder 5.6 and all the new features that come along. Take advantage of them in your next tests, and as always, you’re encouraged to share with us your experience, concerns, and suggestions for our products at Katalon’s community forum.

Happy reading, happy testing, and we hope Recorder 5.6 can become a trusted tool for smarter test execution.

The post Katalon Recorder 5.6: Smarter Test Execution with Dynamic Test Suites and Global Variables appeared first on Katalon Solution.

The Release of Selenium 4 (and 4.1) | Top Features to Look Into

TestingNews — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 05:45:52 +0000

The first-ever release of Selenium WebDriver 1.0 in 2007 has indented a lasting footprint in web automated testing. And through the years, the contributions of the Selenium project (WebDriver, Grid, and IDE) have truly transformed the way that we do quality assurance.

Fast forward to the ‘drop-in’ release of Selenium 4 and Selenium 4.1, this article narrows down the

top 5 changes you need to know for WebDriver, IDE, and Grid.

Release

Selenium 4.0 is here!

Read all about in our blog post:https://t.co/E8ntH7OdaB

We hope you enjoy Selenium 4, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it! #selenium4

— Selenium (@SeleniumHQ) October 13, 2021

Selenium WebDriver 4

W3C Standardization

Cross-browser testing has received an efficiency boost from the updates in Selenium’s architecture.

The WebDriver APIs have removed the support for the legacy protocol and are fully compliant with the W3C Standardization. Allowing browsers and test scripts to communicate straight to the targeted browsers, users no longer have to go through the JSON wire protocol to encode and decode API requests.

For those that still have the ChromeDriver and GeckoDriver browser drivers in use, this standardization will not cause any effects since they have already supported the W3C protocols.

To reassure you, using the W3C WebDriver will not cause any harm to existing users. The main changes only evolve around Capabilities and the Actions class.

Adding and deleting WebDriver APIs

FindsByID, FindsByCss or related FindsBy* (findElementBy) interfaces have been removed and replaced with ‘By’ instance.

| Before

driver.findElementByCssSelector(“.className”);

driver.findElementById(“elementId”);

driver.findElementByXPath(“xPath”);

After

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(“.className”));

driver.findElement(By.id(“elementId”));

driver.findElement(By.xpath(“xPath”));

Relative Locators or Friendly Locators. Names such as above(), below(), toLeftOf(), toRightOf() and near() look to provide an easier way to spot elements that are close to the other DOM elements.As opposed to this, Selenium 4 also introduced new elements such as:
Exceptions set to understand test failures. ‘ElementClickInterceptedError’, ‘InsecureCertificateError’, ‘InvalidCoordinatesError’, and ‘NoSuchCookieError’ classes are included in /lib/error.
Chrome Debugging/DevTools Protocol (CDP) integration. Cross-language APIs are still under development to extend coverage for requirements like log captures or geolocation mocking
Chrome Debugging/DevTools Protocol (CDP) integration. Cross-language APIs are still under development to extend coverage for requirements like log captures or geolocation mocking

Sample code snippet to open a new window

| driver.get(“https://www.katalon.com/”);

// Opens a new window and switches to new window

driver.switchTo().newWindow(WindowType.WINDOW);

// Opens Katalon Academy homepage in the newly opened window

driver.navigate().to(“https://www.academy.katalon.com/”);

Sample code snippet to open a new tab within the same window

| driver.get(“https://www.katalon.com/”);

// Opens a new tab in existing window

driver.switchTo().newWindow(WindowType.TAB);

// Opens Katalon Download page in the newly opened tab

driver.navigate().to(“https://www.katalon.com/download/”);

Emulate different network conditions. The Network.emulateNetworkConditions command helps compare the average loading time by scripting tests that emulate a range of network speed (slow and normal) and connection type (BLUETOOTH, 2G, 3G, 4G, WIFI, etc.).

Selenium IDE

The following are the updates Selenium 4 has added to Selenium:

Revived UI
Plug-ins to fully support Chrome, Firefox, or any other web extension plugins
Parallel testing by switching from being HTML-based to running on a NodeJs platform with the “Selenium-side-runner” CLI runner
Improve scripts written using “while” and “if” conditions
Allows the recorded tests to be exported in Java, C#, Python, .NET, and JavaScript language binding
Backup element selector and updated locator strategies to create more stable tests

Maybe you also want to try the best Alternative for Selenium IDE

Selenium Grid 4

Taking pointers and learning from the success of the Zalenium and Selenoid projects,

Selenium Grid most notable change is being able to:

Implemented a GraphQL model for a new UI to better query and manage Grid
Support deploying on Kubernetes-based infrastructures
Less maintenance work with standalone Firefox server to get Docker images
On-demand Docker containers spin-ups without setting up virtual machines

Loving Selenium? Give Katalon Studio a Try Too!

As a legacy library, many test automation tools have used Selenium as a base to develop a complete framework that is ready to use right away. For Katalon Studio, it’s no exception.

Built on top of Selenium and Appium, Katalon Studio is an all-in-one solution for web, mobile, API, and desktop (Windows) low-code test automation. What makes Studio different from open-source libraries is everything is baked-in into a single tool for users to only focus on testing. This means that teams no longer have a dedicated team to build and maintain their own test automation framework, or to have a strong foundation in programming to start testing.

Any activities relating to creating, executing, maintaining, or generating reports for your tests can be done right away without extra coding or configuration with 3rd-party tools.

Some of Studio’s highlights are:

Native integrations with CI/CD, ALMs, Agile, and DevOps systems (e.g. Jira, Jenkins, CircleCI, Dockers, Kubernetes, etc.)
Flexible and fast test creation with Record and Playback, Manual and Script Mode
Debugging UI and smart reporting to troubleshoot failed tests
Support imports of Selenium, SoapUI, and Postman projects
Page Object Model (POM) design and Test Artifact Sharing to reuse test artifacts (test cases, objects, keywords, etc.)
Supported testing methodologies: BDD, DDT, Keyword-Driven Testing, Cross-Browser Testing (Headless, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari), and Cross-Platform Mobile Testing (iOS, Android)

The post The Release of Selenium 4 (and 4.1) | Top Features to Look Into appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Top 15 List of Automation Testing Tools | Latest Update in 2022

TestingNews — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 08:47:23 +0000

Automation Testing Tools – How to Choose The Right One

Automation testing tools are applications designed to verify function and/or non-functional requirements via automated test scripts.

With the Agile and DevOps manifesto as the standard of software testing, setting a clear-cut automation testing tools evaluation strategy is key. Ultimately, this strategy will need to answer the questions of:

What features are you looking for?
Who’s going to use the tool for testing? Devs or QA teams?
Can it be integrated with CI/CD pipelines or toolchains?
Is it easy to maintain scripts and reuse test assets?
What is your team’s budget?
Where can you get support for technical issues? ** **

Plus, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all automation tool. It really boils down to your team’s specific needs.

Top 15 List of Automation Testing Tools (with Feature Highlights)

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a low-code and scalable automation testing tool for web, API, desktop (Windows), and mobile applications. Up until now, the Katalon community has surpassed the 1 million users and it has been the trusted automation solution of over 100,000 businesses.

Having removed the requirements of coding and building a test automation framework from square one, users can just download the tool and focus solely on testing. Additionally, Studio offers frequent releases to stay compatible with the latest platforms/browsers/OS.

Feature Highlights:

Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback, Manual and Scripting Mode
Supported testing methodologies: BDD, DDT, Keyword-Driven Testing, Cross-Browser Testing (Headless, Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari) and Cross-Platform Mobile Testing (iOS, Android)
Automatic Retry Failed Tests, Smart Wait, and Self-Healing mechanisms
Reusable test objects, keywords, and test cases with Test Artifact Sharing and Page Object Model design
Native integrations with popular CI/CD and ALMs tools (Jira, GitLab, Jenkins, BitBucket, Azure DevOps, etc.)
Smart Debugging UI and test reporting to troubleshoot failures quickly
Detailed tool documentation and video tutorials on Katalon Academy

Website: https://www.katalon.com/katalon-studio/

Price: Free or $76/month

Selenium

Rolled out in 2004, Selenium is one of the most, if not the most, popular open-source framework for web testing automation. Its suite of software consists of Selenium WebDriver, Selenium Grid and Selenium IDE.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, etc.
Supported browsers: Chrome, Firefox, IE, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari, etc.
Testing on local or on remote machines via the Selenium server
Parallel and cross-browser executions to reduce execution time and increase test coverage
Integrations with other testing frameworks (like TestNG for reporting) and CI/CD tools

Website: selenium.dev

Price: Free

Appium

Like Selenium, Appium is also an open-source automation testing tool, but for mobile applications. Using mobile JSON wire protocol, Appium allows users to write automated UI tests for native, web-based, and hybrid mobile applications on both Android and iOS.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming languages: Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Perl
Cross-platform testing with reusable test scripts and same APIs
Execution across real devices, simulators, and emulators
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: appium.io

Price: Free

TestComplete

TestComplete can automate functionalUI testing for desktop, mobile, and web applications. With built-in support for 500+ controls and third-party frameworks, TestComplete can handle and identify dynamic UI elements in most available technologies.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, Delphi, C++, C#
Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback, manual and scripting modes with built-in keywords.
Object identification with property-based and AI visual recognition
Parallel, cross-browser and cross-device testing
Integrations with other testing frameworks, CI/CD tools, and SmartBear ecosystem

Website: smartbear.com/product/testcomplete/overview/

Price: From $2,702/year

Cypress

Purely supporting JavaScript frameworks, Cypress is a developer-centric automation tool for end-to-end web testing. Built upon a new architecture, Cypress can directly operate within a browser in the same run-loop as your application, enabling native access to elements and faster executions.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming language: JavaScript
Snapshots of test step execution and debuggability from familiar developer tools
Control over function behavior, server response, timers, and network traffic
Connection to Dashboard Service for test performance and optimization
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: cypress.io

Price: Free or from $75/month for Dashboard Service

Ranorex Studio

Next on the list, Ranorex Studio can automate GUI testing for web, mobile, and desktop applications. Equipped with both low-code automation and full IDE, Ranorex’s framework is easy to start for beginners and productive to use for experienced testers.

Feature Highlights:

Supported programming languages: VB .Net and C#
Broad support for web, mobile, and desktop technologies
Ranorex Spy tool and RanoreXPath for reliable recognition of GUI elements
Flexible methods for test design: Record & Playback and scripting mode
Distributed or parallel testing with Selenium Grid
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: ranorex.com

Price: From €2,890/year

Perfecto

Perfecto is a cloud-based and automated testing platform for web and mobile applications. From automated cross-environment executions, custom capabilities, test analysis, and broad integrations, Perfecto makes continuous testing more achievable for DevOps teams.

Feature Highlights:

Scriptless test creation for UI web applications
Real-user stimulation for mobile testing: network visualization, and other environmental conditions
Parallel and cross-platform executions
Advanced test analytics with centralized dashboard and AI noise filtering
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: perfecto.io/products/platform/overview

Price: From $125/month

LambdaTest

LambdaTest provides automated testing on the cloud. Its cloud service allows teams to scale up their test coverage with speedy parallel, cross-browser, and cross-device testing.

Feature Highlights:

Online Selenium Grid on the cloud of over 2000 devices, browsers, and OSs
Support for Cypress test scripts parallel and cross-browser executions
Geolocation web testing across over 27 countries
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: lambdatest.com/automation-testing

Price: From $99/month

Postman

Postman is one of the most widely-used automation testing tools for API. It allows users to write different kinds of tests, from functional, integration to regression tests, and execute them automatically in CI/CD pipelines via the command line.

Feature Highlights:

Friendly and easy-to-use interface equipped with code snippets
Support for multiple HTML methods, Swagger and RAML formats
Broad support for API schemas to generate collections and API elements
Test suite creation, executions with parameterization, and debugging
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: postman.com

Price: Free or from $12/user/month

SoapUI

This open-source API testing tool is designed for REST and SOAP Web Services. Some vital features include automated functional, performance, regression, and security testing. Users can also aim for the commercial version – ReadyAPI (formerly SoapUI Pro) for more advanced capabilities.

Feature Highlights:

Drag and Drop to create tests, even with complex scenarios
Service stimulation to reduce efforts of building production systems for testing
Quick and easy test script reusability
More protocol support, capabilities, and CI/CD integration with ReadyAPI

Website: soapui.org

Price: Free or from $749/year for ReadyAPI

Eggplant Functional

Being a part of Eggplant’s ecosystem, Eggplant Functional is a GUI automation testing tool for mobile, desktop, and web applications. With an image-based approach, it allows a single script to automate different combinations of platforms and technologies.

Feature Highlights:

Flexible methods for test design: recording, manual mode, and assisted scripting
Unique English-like scripting language – SenseTalk
Connection to Eggplant ecosystem for more testing capabilities and monitoring
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: eggplantsoftware.com/product-downloads

Price: Contact sales

Tricentis Tosca

Tricentis Tosca is a comprehensive automation tool for web, API, mobile, and desktop testing. It has a unique model-based testing approach, allowing users to scan an application’s UI or APIs to create a business-familiar model for test creation and maintenance.

Feature Highlights:

Codeless test creation and high reusability of test assets with the model-based approach

Risk-based test optimization with smart test design and requirement prioritization
Service virtualization to stimulate and build realistic testing environments
API scanning with extensive support for API technologies
Parallel and cross-platform testing
Integrations with other testing frameworks and CI/CD tools

Website: tricentis.com/products/automate-continuous-testing-tosca/

Price: Contact sales

Apache JMeter

This open-source tool is designed for automated performance testing, primarily for web applications. It can stimulate a heavy load of users to access web services and analyze the AUT’s performance. Jmeter can also be used for functional API testing.

Feature Highlights:

Friendly and easy-to-use interface
Test plan creation with recording feature
Test execution in both GUI and CLI modes
Support for many different servers, applications, and protocol types
Integrations with popular CI/CD tools

Website: jmeter.apache.org

Price: Free

Robot Framework

Robot Framework is a generic open-source framework for test automation, especially for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development. Built with a keyword-driven approach, it’s low-code to start and also extensible with a rich ecosystem of tools and libraries.

Feature Highlights:

Test case creation with easy tabular syntax
Keyword-driven and data-driven testing support
Variables for testing in different environments
Support for plenty of external libraries and integrations with other tools

Website: robotframework.org

Price: Free

Protractor

This open-source framework automates end-to-end testing primarily for Angular and AngularJS applications. It works as an integrator of Selenium, WebDriver, Jasmine, NodeJS, and other technologies. That said, Protractor can also work well for regression testing with non-Angular apps.

Feature Highlights:

Test execution in a real browser using native events
Element identification in Angular applications with extended HTML attributes
Support for behavior-driven development frameworks like Jasmine and Mocha
Automatic waiting
Parallel and cross-browser testing with Selenium Grid

Website: protractortest.org

Price: Free

Select Your Best Fit Automation Testing Tool

There’s no need to emphasize again the importance of automation testing tools. To pick one for your team, don’t just blindly follow other teams’ success. Instead, look at your team’s specific needs, human resources, and future scalability, to choose the best fit option.

If your team’s testers are experienced developers, using Selenium or Appium for an automation framework can be great since it allows you to build and scale from the ground up.

However, if your team consists of mostly manual testers and you need a low-code solution to start but it can also grow with the team’s future scalability, ready-made frameworks like Katalon Studio can be a perfect solution.

Creating, running, maintaining tests and getting centralized analytics of test results can be done effortlessly.

The post Top 15 List of Automation Testing Tools | Latest Update in 2022 appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Top 10 Free Open-Source Testing Tools, Framework & Libraries

TestingNews — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 12:38:03 +0000

Free open-source frameworks, libraries, and tools are the go-to solutions for automation testing.

The main difference between these is knowing your preference between creating your building a brand new test automation framework using libraries, or working on a made-ready tool where testing is all you will have to care about.

This article gives you a quick glance at the Top 10 Free and Open Source Testing Tools, Tools, Framework & Libraries.

Top 10 Free and Open Source Testing Tools, Tools, Framework & Libraries

Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a popular and free test automation tool for web, mobile, API and desktop (Windows). Offering both low-code and scripting methods, Katalon Studio removes the complicated training to build and maintain a separate testing framework.

With everything built-in, users can focus directly on testing activities and spend less effort on creating, running and maintaining tests.

Feature highlights:

Supported programming languages: Java and Groovy
Compatible with Windows, macOS and Linux
Page Object Model (POM) design for simple maintenance
Reusable test artifacts (test cases, objects, keywords, etc)
Supported testing methodologies: BDD, DDT, Keyword-Driven Testing, Cross-Browser Testing (Headless, Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari) and Cross-Platform Mobile Testing (iOS, Android)
Flexible and fast test creation with Record and Playback, Manual, and Script Mode
Allow importing Selenium, SoapUI and Postman projects
Debugging UI and smart reporting to troubleshoot failed tests
Native integrations to CI/CD systems (Jenkins, Bamboo, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, etc.), ALMs (eg. Jira)
Step-by-step tools training to use Studio in real projects on Katalon Academy

Selenium

Selenium is probably the first name that pops up on the subject of web-based and open-source test automation. To be more exact, Selenium wouldn’t be considered as a tool, but a programming library.

With the field-famous trifecta of Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE, Selenium Grid and the recent release of Selenium 4, this is sure to be the top choice for coding enthusiasts.

Feature highlights

Supported programming languages: Java, JavaScript (Node.js), Groovy, Scala, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java or C#
Import advanced tests scripted on Eclipse, Visual Studio, NetBeans
Compatible with macOS, Windows and Linux for cross-platform execution
Customizable add-ons and plugins
Allows integration with frameworks such as Ant, Maven, TestNG, JUnit, NUnit, etc.

Website: selenium.dev

Appium

Sharing a similar suffix as Selenium’s, Appium is likewise the open-source framework to remember for mobile automated testing. From native, mobile web to hybrid applications, Appium is a highly sought-after option to eliminate the need for recompiling applications and automating APIs.

Feature highlights

Supported programming languages: Java, PHP, Objective-C, C#, Clojure, JavaScript with Node.js, Python, Perl or whichever Selenium supports
JSON Wire Protocol to add flexibility to the programming language used
Automated testing scripts can run on iOS and Android platforms
Test applications without having the source code in place

Website: appium.io

Apache JMeter

Apache JMeter, or JMeter in short, is an automation tool for performance (load and stress testing) and functional testing. JMeter’s primary uses are to measure the performance of applications and act as virtual users to send requests to the designated server.

Feature highlights

Supported programming language: Java
User-friendly UI/GUI and Beanshell processor for custom code
Works with HTTP, HTTPS, JDBC, LDAP, FTP, LDAP, SOAP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, TCP, and Java-scripted protocols
Open to integrating with Jenkins and third-party reporting tools
Multi-threaded framework (Concurrency Thread Group) to sample functions separately from a thread group

Website: jmeter.apache.org

SOAP UI

To test SOAP and REST APIs, we got SOAP UI. Aside from API testing, SOAP UI’s open-source application for web service testing additionally covers functional, load, compliance, and mock testing.

Feature highlights

Supported programming languages: Groovy and Javascript
Protocol support for SOAP/WSDL, REST, and JMS
DataSource TestStep for Data-Driven Testing
Simple requirements management
Integration with Maven, HUDSON, JUnit, and Apache Ant

Website: soapui.org

_ Get 5 more API testing tools: _ Top 15 Automated API Testing Tools in 2022 | Latest Update

Robot Framework

Using Python as the main scripting language, Robot Framework is an open-source framework for acceptance testing and robotic process automation (RPA). The Robot Framework is commonly associated with free mobile and desktop applications testing tools.

Feature highlights

Supported programming language: Python, Jython (Java), PyPy, and IronPython (.NET)
OS compatibility: Windows, macOS, Unix, and Linux
Can use Eclipse, RIDE (Robot Framework IDE), or text editors to build tests
Keyword-driven testing, autocomplete completion and syntax highlighting to reduce coding time
Integration with Appium and Selenium

Website: robotframework.org

Watir

Watir, or Web Application Testing in Ruby, provides you with open-source libraries in Ruby for cross-browser or web test automation.

Feature highlights

Supported programming language: Ruby
Browser compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, Safari
BDD design available from integrations with Cucumber, RSpec, etc
Watir 7.0.0 is available on RubyGems, but requires Ruby 2.6+ and Selenium 4.0

Website: watir.com

JUnit

Java plus unit testing give us JUnit. Ranking 7th in Java Top 10 Libraries, this free open-source testing framework is a favorite among Java developers to edit and refactor code at the unit level. What’s more, the release of JUnit 5 has brought useful updates like better organizing tests in hierarchies, simultaneous use of multiple runners at once and more.

Supported programming language: Java
Script automated unit tests with annotations and assert classes
Extension APIs or extension mechanisms to work with third-party software
Parallel execution (version 5.3 onwards)
AssertThrows method for easier exception and timeout handling

Website: junit.org

Robotium

Often referred to as a “Selenium for Android,” Robotium is a popular open-source framework for Android applications black-box testing, both native and hybrid.

Supported programming language: Java
Run-time binding to view all Android UI components and activities
Integration with Gradle, Maven, and Ant to write automated mobile tests
Adjustable execution speed with Config.sleepDuration and Config.sleepMiniDuration

Website: github.com/RobotiumTech/robotium

Citrus

Our last open-source test automation framework is Citrus. Citrus would definitely ring a bell for developers working with integration testing and verifying messaging transport connectivity. As well as that, connecting JUnit or TestNG to use in complementary is common to script Java-based unit tests.

Supported message protocols: HTTP, REST, SOAP, Kafka, JMS, etc
XML or Java coding for flexible test creation
Integration with Apache Camel, Arquillian, Kubernetes and Docker to enable microservice integration testing
BDD and cloud-native BDD automated testing using Cucumber and YAKS
Test POST, GET, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, PATCH, HEAD, REST APIs with REST’s extension

Website: citrusframework.org

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Katalon Studio or Open-Source Frameworks?

Well, that’s about it. In case you’ve been thinking about which is the best tool to choose – don’t.

With the cost out of the picture, it’s not a good idea to say what is best without giving the context.

What’s your team trying to test? Is it web, mobile, API, desktop or many at once? You can’t expect a unit testing framework to also cover the requirements of functional testing.
Are the developers taking care of the testing as well? If the responsibility of developers in your team involves both developing and testing software, then you’re geared up to build your own test automation framework. But if it’s largely QAs, then Katalon Studio will help free up your developers to focus on building software, features, custom keywords and testing on the lower levels such as unit and integration. In turn, your QAs will be the ones taking care of the larger-scope testing like end-to-end.
Will the tool help my team scale effortlessly? This is key. Integrations to ALMs, CI/CD, DevOps and Agile toolchains, without a doubt, will be needed when your teams grow. For open-source frameworks, every new integration with a third-party tool will require workarounds. Yet, Katalon Studio’s integrations are all native. You can be rest-assured to connect in a few clicks and get back to testing right away.
Will updating to the tool’s latest version require additional work? If you’ve been using Selenium 3.x, then upgrading to Selenium 4 isn’t as simple as clicking “Upgrade Now.” Instead, you’d have to migrate every single test and test suite. And while that’s happening, there would need to be someone still taking care of the existing tests and updating the failed ones. In contrast, Katalon Studio is as easy as clicking “Upgrade Now” for you to enjoy to newest features and improvements instantly.

The post Top 10 Free Open-Source Testing Tools, Framework & Libraries appeared first on Katalon Solution.

Automated vs. Manual Testing: When and Why?

TestingNews — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 10:00:07 +0000

Testing is the backbone of the Agile software development methodology. The efficiency of the testing process directly impacts the quality of the deliverables and the goodwill of the organization. Buggy software can lead to poor user experience, delayed project timelines, diminished brand value, and revenue losses.

A strong testing process consists of several well-planned activities with definite timelines and a set of clear expected outcomes. The execution plan in the testing process, either manual or automated, has always received greater significance and seems to drive the entire process definition. Having a well-defined testing process helps in the following ways, directly and indirectly:

Gives enough time to iterate the test execution in manual and automated mode

All test artifacts are created and captured along with a clear Requirements Traceability Matrix
Scheduling and utilization of testing resources, both in terms of people and environments, becomes effective
Defect isolation, reporting, and reproducing become easier
The feedback cycle of identifying and addressing a bug is small and quick
Test coverage across multiple testing verticals becomes clear and indicates the quality of the software; it includes functional testing, black-box testing, smoke testing, integration testing, regression testing, performance testing, and more
The strategy of Test data creation and refresh is concise, clear, and repeatable

Once a test process is in place, it is easier and simpler to automate the execution of the tests and reduce the manual interventions in the test cycle. However, it is impractical to assume that the manual test effort can be completely reduced to zero, and neither is it advisable. It needs to be repurposed correctly.

Test Execution

Test execution takes the maximum amount of time in the entire test process. To ensure maximum and complete coverage, test execution is done iteratively and repetitively. It is planned and performed multiple times with the same and different data sets under different categories of testing, such as functional, non-functional, regression, and environmental. Repeating the test execution several times gives delivery teams complete confidence about the quality of the deliverable. Moreover, it is less expensive to identify a bug during testing and address it, rather than let users discover it during their operations.

The key to reducing test execution time is to automate the activity of test execution. It is important to understand that the basic difference between automated testing and manual testing is in the way the test cases are executed. Irrespective of execution style, the steps of test planning, test scenario identification, data strategy definition, and expected outcome identification need to be performed beforehand.

The automation of testing includes the following aspects of the test process:

Test data preparation: Using scripts created automatically by tools like Katalon Studio, or written in SQL, Python, Shell, or other similar languages
Test cases execution: Using tools such as Katalon Studio, Katalon TestOps, Selenium, or others
Test results verification: Using tools like Katalon Studio and Katalon TestOps, or scripts such as Groovy, Ruby, Python, and others
Test results visualization: Using advanced reports in Katalon TestOps, JavaScript-based visualization toolkits, or HTML5 based reporting toolkits

In the case of automated testing, there is an additional step of preparing the scripts for test cases using a tool or programming language.

Comparisons

Whenever automated and manual testing are compared, the following factors are considered; however, automated testing is better on all of these fronts:

The accuracy of the execution and results
The velocity of execution of the test cases
The repetitiveness of the execution steps

Cases for Automated Testing

The automation of testing is useful in modern-day delivery, both, for quality and velocity. However, it does not come for free. During the preparation phase, test teams need to write or record test scripts along with data creation, results verification, and data tear-down steps. Automated testing is worth the effort in order to save the time and cost in most of the cases, such as those listed below:

Agile development teams require continuous feedback on the quality of their daily deliverables and use them for performing nightly builds. Continuous testing activity is configured within the CI/CD pipeline and executed along with the nightly builds as well as the on-demand builds. It includes unit testing, system testing, integration testing, and regression testing of the build. Test results are shared immediately with the development team to address the issues found.
At the end of a sprint or a release cycle , the release candidate needs to undergo various types of tests. If performed manually, it’s very time-consuming. Having automation ensures that multiple rounds can be run simultaneously or back-to-back to capture the results. This ensures complete coverage of new functionality, easy regression, configuration verification, and more.
Another good case for automation is when there are multiple configuration options available in the software and each needs to be tested. Although the test cases remain the same, the test results may change due to changes in the environmental and software configuration. Running the same test cases manually is time-consuming as well as error-prone.
When concurrency, load, and endurance need to be tested for software, it is best to use automated testing. Performing the same thing manually would require several people to perform the same activity over a long period of time. It is a waste of time, resources, and money. Automated test cases can be run in parallel from the same machine and produce the same output.
Automation of the security tests against threats and attacks is very important to prevent security attacks, DDoS attacks, malicious code injections, brute force attacks, vulnerabilities, cross-site scripting, script injections, impersonation attacks, and more. Quite a few of these attacks cannot be simulated manually and always require automation.

Cases for Manual Testing

While test automation is very important for a project, manual testing holds its place in the entire mix.

The initial rounds of testing done during the verification phase of the first release candidate are done manually. During this phase, the process of testing and the efficacy of the release candidate is established. Only after the initial manual testing is completed successfully, can the automated test cases be executed confidently.
During the support phase of software, multiple releases of the software are made. While all forms of repetitive testing are performed using automation, there are cases where the software may encounter a P1 bug and require an immediate quick fix. In such cases, while the regression is performed using automation, the fix of the P1 bugs must be tested manually to ensure completeness.
Testing the usability of software requires observing the behavior of the software, focusing on the ease of use, and assessing user irritation during use of the software. Usability testing is done manually because of the need for human intelligence. With the advancement of the AI/ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning) stream, the analysis of emotion is also becoming automated.
Random testing of the release candidate is also performed manually. It is also referred to as “Monkey” testing. Random pieces of functionalities are chosen for testing under this process. It unveils the robustness of the software. Since there is no defined path of testing, either in terms of test data or test steps, it is performed manually by testers. Any bugs identified during such a test result in thorough regression testing.
Sometimes specific scenarios need to be tested manually. For example, in an integration environment, the software needs to interact with a gate system. It involves hardware delay because the gate responds only after reading the RFID tag, which takes a bit of time. Although such scenarios can be configured in automated test scripts, it is always good to test them manually as well to ensure that the process is completed smoothly.

Conclusion

For testing software, neither automation nor manual approaches are going to work individually. The best approach is to prepare a mix of both. Delivery teams should automate as many test cases as possible and use manual testing as a way to randomly check the most critical scenarios. While the initial setup of an automated test suite involves a lot of initial effort, it benefits the entire delivery process in the long run. Automation helps to save time and budget and manual testing helps to give an intermittent push to the quality assurance. Manual testing lays the process down that can be automated subsequently. Both of the testing approaches are complementary to each other.

The post Manual Testing vs Automation testing appeared first on Katalon Solution.

DEV Community: Katalon Platform

Top 10 Regression Testing Best Practices

1. Integrate Regression Tests into CI/CD Early

2. Isolate the System Under Test (SUT)

3. Focus Your Regression Testing Based on Risk

4. Rotate Your Test Coverage

5. Prioritize Tests Around New Features

6. Use Metrics to Decide When to Stop

7. Analyze Bug Reports to Improve Coverage

8. Use Unit Tests and Code Coverage to Guide Effort

9. Start Small With Automation and Grow

10. Mix Manual and Automated Regression Tests

From Manual to Automation: 5 Essential Steps

Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing

How to Switch From Manual to Automation Testing

Step 1: Find Suitable Test Cases to Automate

Step 2: Find the Compatible Tools or Frameworks

Step 3: Manage the Tool Development Process

Step 4: Generate-Execute-Report-Maintain

Step 5: Monitor the Automation Tool’s Effectiveness

Conclusion

Announcing Katalon TestCloud | Cloud-based Cross-Browser Testing in The Katalon Platform

All from Within The Katalon Platform

Expand your testing possibilities from Studio

Orchestrate using TestOps

Enterprise Standards

Availability

Conclusion

The State of Quality Report 2022 | The Next Stepping Stone of Software Testing

Shift-left is the Current Testing Trend.

Test Automation is Worth the Investment.

AI Testing is the Next Big Thing in Automation.

Our Recommendation for the QA Community in 2022

Announcing Katalon TestOps January 2022 Release

TestCloud GA & TestOps Integration

Start Your TestCloud GA Trial from TestOps

Test Execution

Reload Script Repo Contents

Integrations

Support for the Leading Git Repository Providers

Test Suite Management Updates

Test Suite Creation and Execution in TestOps

Test Suite Directory View

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Wrapping Up

Top 15 DevOps Tools for 2022 | Latest Update

Criteria for choosing the right DevOps tools

Top 15 DevOps tools

TEST ORCHESTRATION

Katalon TestOps

DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS

Kubernetes

Docker

AUTOMATION TESTING

Katalon Studio

Ranorex Studio

CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION & DEPLOYMENT SYSTEMS (CI/CD)

Jenkins

Azure DevOps

CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

Ansible

Chef

VERSION CONTROL SYSTEMS

Git

INFRASTRUCTURE-AS-A-CODE

Terraform

BUILDS AND CODES MANAGEMENT

Gradle

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT (ALM)

Jira

Trello

Raygun

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