Software testing is crucial for software development while also being tedious and time-consuming when performed manually. However, the inception of software testing tools has streamlined and simplified the testing process.
Earlier, without testing tools, testers would spend hours validating an application’s single feature. However, the scenario is different today with software testing tools. They have significantly reduced the testing time and manual errors and improved test accuracy.
This article aims to make you aware of different types of testing tools that make testing easy and quick.
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Automated Software Testing Tools
Let us first check out some automated testing tools that help you perform functional testing and regression testing. They automate the creation of test scripts, reducing significant time and cost and improving accuracy.
Selenium
Selenium is one of the most famous web browser automation tools. It is a free, open-source tool with several tutorials and an active community.
- It offers a selection of utilities and libraries for automating web browsers on different operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- Selenium supports multiple languages – Java, C#, Ruby, PHP, Groovy, etc. Hence, it is a preferred choice among developers and testers.
- It offers a suite of tools – Selenium IDE, Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium Grid.
- Selenium IDE is a record-and-play tool. It records users’ interactions with your web application and plays them to automate testing.
- WebDriver is a tool for writing test cases in different programming languages.
- Selenium Grid facilitates testing your web applications across multiple browsers and platforms.
Watir
Watir stands for Web Application Testing In Ruby. It is a free and open-source browser automation tool.
- It only supports the Ruby language.
- It provides an efficient way to create automated tests by enabling testers to interact with online sites and carry out operations like clicking buttons, filling out forms, and confirming page content.
- Watir is ideal for novice and seasoned testers.
- It is an efficient tool to automate complex testing scenarios.
Download link – Watir website.
Katalon Studio
Katalon Studio is a free automation tool to automate websites, APIs – SOAP and Rest, and mobile apps.
- Its learning curve is fairly simple, with the feature to both works on record and playback or manual and scripting modes.
- You can take advantage of templates and sample test cases for easy automation testing.
- It is a one-stop solution for your testing needs.
- Katalon Studio also offers tools for test case management, test data management, test reporting, and test execution.
- It seamlessly integrates with other tools, including JIRA, Git, Jenkins, and Slack.
- One advantage of Katalon Studio is it has a low learning curve.
Check our tutorial – Katalon Studio tutorial.
Download link – Katalon Studios Official website.
QTP or UFT
Quick Test Professional(QTP) is a commercial functional test automation tool Hewlett Packard provides.
- It supports VB script scripting and can automate web and Windows applications.
- You can test web, desktop, and mobile applications using QTP or UFT.
- It offers a variety of features – a visual editor for creating test cases and object identification and recognition.
- It seamlessly integrates with other tools and frameworks – Jenkins, ALM, and JIRA.
Download link – Trial version
TestComplete
TestComplete is a commercial GUI automation testing tool provided by Smartbear.
- It supports record-and-playback and scripting and can automate web, mobile, and desktop applications.
- You can create test cases in various scripting languages – JavaScript, Python, VBScript, and DelphiScript.
- It supports keyword-driven testing and data-driven testing.
- The object recognition and identification feature helps you easily identify UI elements in web and mobile applications.
Download details – Smartbear’s official site.
Performance Testing Tools
These tools automate validating software, web, and mobile applications for their performance, stability, and scalability under different load conditions.
JMeter
JMeter is one of the most popular open-source performance testing tools.
- It can be used for performance testing of different kinds of applications – Web applications, REST and SOAP web services, databases, etc.
- It can simulate a high number of users, network traffic, and system load to uncover performance bottlenecks.
- JMeter supports multiple protocols – HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, JDBC, SOAP, and TCP.
- A visual editor helps you create test cases with ease.
- You can integrate JMeter with Selenium WebDriver, Jenkins, and AWS.
- Take advantage of plugins and add-ons to extend the framework’s functionality.
Check out – Apache JMeter Tutorial.
Download Link – Apache JMeter Official Site.
LoadRunner
LoadRunner is one of the most popular commercial performance testing tools in the market. It is licensed by Micro Focus.
- You must have some programming language skills, especially in ‘C,’ to create scripts in LoadRunner.
- It supports testing the performance of web and mobile applications under different conditions.
- LoadRunner supports different protocols and technologies – HTTP/HTTPS, SOAP, .NET, Java, SAP, Oracle, and more.
- Virtual User Generator (VuGen) is a record-and-play feature that records user interactions and generates test scripts.
- You can monitor system resources, network traffic, and server response times in real-time to uncover performance bottlenecks.
Download link – Free Trial LoadRunner
The Grinder
The Grinder is a free and open-source load testing framework built over Java.
- It can be used for performance testing of web applications, SOAP, and REST web services.
- The Grinder requires scripting in Java, Jython (Java implementation of Python), and Clojure.
- It supports distributed testing, i.e., it distributes loads across multiple systems.
- The script recorder allows you to record user interactions and generate test scripts.
- It supports a wide range of plugins and add-ons to extend its functionality.
Download Link – Grinder
Gatling
Gatling is a free and open-source load-testing tool based on frameworks like Scala, Akka, and Netty.
- It follows the script-based approach to load testing.
- It supports scripting in the Scala language.
- Gatling provides real-time test results – response times, throughput, and error rates.
- It supports distributed testing.
- You can integrate it with various CI/CD tools, including Jenkins, Travis CI, and GitLab.
Enterprise version Link – Gatlings
JCrawler
JCrawler is a free and open-source performance testing tool for web applications. It is developed in Java.
- It is based on the crawling mechanism. It crawls through a website and tests different features and pages.
- Users can configure the starting URL and the required hits/second parameter to start load testing.
- Extend JCrawler’s functionality to make it suitable for other testing types – security testing and accessibility testing.
- It is highly customizable.
Download link – JCrawler
OpenWebLoad
OpenWebLoad is a free and open-source load testing tool.
- It comes as a command-line tool that doesn’t require any scripting language knowledge.
- OpenWebLoad is easy to use.
- It supports real-time reporting of test results – response times, throughput, and error rates.
- You can perform distributed testing.
Download Link – OpenWebLoad
API Testing Tools
These tools automate the testing of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Here are some popular API testing tools-
Advanced Rest Client
Advanced Rest Client or ARC is a Chrome plug-in for testing REST APIs.
- ARC makes testing of RESTful APIs easy and simple, allowing testers to send HTTP requests and inspect the responses easily.
- It supports various HTTP methods, headers, and query parameters.
- You can define various environment variables to manage different testing environments.
- It keeps the history of all HTTP requests and responses.
- It integrates with other testing and CI/CD tools.
Download Link – ARC
Postman
Postman is a Chrome extension that helps test REST API services.
- You can easily create and automate test cases to validate REST APIs.
- The interface is intuitive, allowing you to easily create and manage HTTP requests and responses.
- It supports various HTTP methods, headers, and query parameters.
- You can organize your API tests into collections and share them with others.
- Feature-rich documentation helps you learn how to operate the tool easily.
Download Link – Postman
CURL (Linux)
CURL is a command-line tool for making different requests – HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, LDAP, etc. It comes with most Linux distributions.
- Though it is not a testing tool, it is used as one.
- It supports various protocols and authentication methods.
- It can seamlessly integrate with automation testing frameworks.
Below is the syntax for making simple Post requests:
CURL-curl -v -X POST -HContent-Type:application/json –data-binary ‘{“param1″:”value1”, “param2″:”value2”}’ http://<ip>:<port>/API_URL
Android APP Automation Tools
These software testing applications help you automate the testing of Android applications. We have listed some of the most popular automation tools for Android apps below.
Appium
Appium is one of the most popular open-source tools for automating mobile, native, and hybrid applications on both Android and iOS.
- It supports scripting in multiple languages – Java, Ruby, C#, Python, etc.
- You can write test scripts in the desired supporting language and run them on real devices, emulators, or simulators.
- The use of simulators and emulators reduces hardware costs.
- Appium integrates with other testing frameworks, including TestNG, JUnit, and Mocha.
Download Link – Appium Official Site
Robotium
Robotium is an open-source tool for automating both native and hybrid android Apps.
- It supports scripting in Java only.
- You can write automatic black-box UI tests for Android applications easily and quickly.
- It lets you write different functions and system and user acceptance test scenarios to cover multiple Android activities.
- Robotium supports real devices and emulators.
- It executes test cases quickly.
- Seamlessly integrates with Maven, Gradle, or Ant, which are build tools.
Download Link – RobotiumTech Github
Selendroid
Selendroid is an open-source tool for automating native and hybrid Android apps and mobile websites.
- It only supports Java.
- It is compatible with JSON Wire Protocol/Selenium 3 Ready.
- The Android driver webview app makes testing mobile web easy.
- Selendroid can communicate with various hardware devices and emulators simultaneously.
- It integrates seamlessly with Selenium Grid for parallel testing.
- Inspector simplifies the development of test cases.
- It offers extensions to expand its functionality.
Download Link – Selendroid Github
MonkeyRunner
MonkeyRunner is a free and open-source tool for automating UI testing for Android apps.
- It supports creating scripts in Jython – Python integrated with Java.
- You can test Android apps with MonkeyRunner on real devices as well as emulators.
- You can integrate MonkeyRunner with Android Studio.
- It lets you simulate user interaction with your Android app.
MonkeyRunner comes with Android SDK.
IOS APP Automation Tools
These tools help you automate the testing of iOS applications. Check out some of the most popular iOS app automation testing tool options below:
Appium
Details are shared above in the Android Automation Tools section.
Frank
Frank is an open-source tool to automate acceptance tests for native iOS applications.
- It is based on Cucumber. Hence, it supports test cases written in BDD style, i.e., Given-When-Then format.
- You can create test cases in plain English syntax, which becomes easy for you.
- It can integrate with Cucumber, a popular behavior-driven development (BDD) tool. Hence, you can also write test cases in Cucumber’s Gherkin syntax.
- You can test your iOS app on real devices and emulators.
- The installation process is simple and hassle-free.
Download link – Frank Github
EggPlant
EggPlant is a commercial tool to automate testing for Android, iOS, and Windows applications.
- It uses an image-based approach for UI automation. Hence, it can be used by non-programmers.
- Eggplant takes screenshots of the user interface and identifies and interacts with UI components using image recognition.
- You can test your applications on different platforms – desktop, mobile, and web.
- It uses a data-driven testing approach.
Download Link – TestPlant free trial
Ranorex
Ranorex is also a commercial GUI test automation tool for Android, iOS, and Windows Smartphone applications.
- It provides record and playback as well as scripting capability.
- It supports keyword-driven testing and image-based testing.
- Ranorex is a scalable tool, allowing you to add more tests and test cases as your app grows.
- It is a complete test management solution, enabling you to create, execute, and manage test cases in a central location.
Download Link – Ranorex trial version
Conclusion
This completes our list of top software testing tools. These tools help developers and testers to automate and streamline the testing of Android, iOS, and web applications on different platforms. Each tool mentioned above has its own features and is suitable for a specific type of software testing.
So, you can choose the testing tools based on your testing requirements, such as the type of application you are testing, the type of testing your app needs, and the platform on which you want to test.
Let us know in the comments if we have missed any popular testing tools.
Kuldeep is the founder and lead author of ArtOfTesting. He is skilled in test automation, performance testing, big data, and CI-CD. He brings his decade of experience to his current role where he is dedicated to educating the QA professionals. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.