With the shrinking development cycles, pressure of reducing the time to go-to-market and repetitive processes, automation is no longer optional. Also, there is no relaxation on the quality of the final products; companies just can’t afford to launch products that are not ready for the prime time. While test management tools like QMetry, Testopia, Quality center etc. provide a great way to manage and improve the overall test process, various test automation tools help further optimize it. Therefore, it is not surprising that the demand for test automation tools has increased drastically and more so for less expensive ones, given the current economic situation.
This has given rise to a number of open source test automation tools (See the list below). These open source tools offer an inexpensive way to automate the testing process. However, we still need to evaluate them against the commercially available tools that seem to offer greater predictability and support. Tools like QTP, Rational Robot have served the test automation needs of QA teams for a long time, but there have been many challenges and constraints that users have been facing with these tools. Some issues with proprietary tools that need to be addressed are:
– These tools are highly expensive, often times outside the budget of smaller QA teams
– As the application undergoes revision over time, maintenance costs of test scripts rises sharply
– Restrictions on licensing
– Lack of support for scripting language
– Dependency on add-ons
As far as the open source testing tool market is concerned, with so many players jumping onto the bandwagon, it is a herculean task for new entrants to differentiate and find a place for themselves The number of open source automation tools makes it hard for users to identify the best for their needs. At Apexon, we evaluated almost all the tools out there on different parameters and discovered various strengths and weaknesses associated with them. (I’ll be publishing those findings in my next blog, stay tuned). We have been helping our clients in selecting the best tools and in developing various frameworks to address their specific needs. We spend most of our time in understanding the nature of application, business objectives, and the features that are required of the automation tools. This information is critical for selecting the right tool and developing robust frameworks.
In the later blogs on automation, I will be talking about our research findings, frameworks, testing on the cloud and open source test automation tools in general. In the meanwhile, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding any of these topics, please feel free to write to me at Durgesh.kaushik@apexon.com.
List of Open source testing tools for functional testing (Source: http://www.opensourcetesting.org/)
Abbot Java GUI Test Framework
Anteater
Apodora
Arbiter
Autonet
AutoTestFlash
Avignon
Blerby Test Runner
Canoo WebTest
Capedit
Concordion
Crosscheck
csvdiff
CubicTest
Cucumber
DBFeeder
DbFit
DejaGnu
Dogtail
Doit: Simple Web Application Testing
Eclipse TPTP
EMOS Framework
Enterprise Web Test
Expect
expect-lite
Frankenstein
GITAK
GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project
Harness
httest
IdMUnit
Imprimatur
ItIN – Infopath testing in .Net
ITP
ItsNat, Natural AJAX
ivalidator
Jacobie
Jameleon
jDiffChaser
Jemmy
JFunc: JUnit Functional Testing Extension
JSystem
JUnitum
jWebUnit
Latka
Linux Test Project
LogiTest
LReport
MActor
Marathon
MaxQ
miTester for SIP
Mockito
MozUnit
OLVER – Open Linux VERification
Om
Om
org.tigris.mbt
PAMIE
Pounder
pywinauto
QAliber
QAT (Quality Assurance Tests)
QMTest
Rasta
Robot Framework
Sahi
Samie
Sauce Labs: cloud-based Selenium service
Scalable Test Platform
Selenium
SharpRobo
soapui
Software Automation Framework Support
Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF)
Solex
SWAT (Simple Web Automation Toolkit)
SWTBot
SymbioTeam Lite
Systin
T-Plan Robot
tclwebtest
TestGen4Web
TestPlan
TextTest
Tomato
Toster – The Object-oriented Sofware Testing Environment
Watij
WatiN
Watir
Web Form Flooder
WebDriver
WebInject
WebTst
WET
Win32::IEAutomation
XML Test Suite
Other Resources:
http://www.slideshare.net/sebastian_bergmann/testing-with-phpunit-and-selenium
