The need to know the best mobile app testing tools is very crucial because if a mobile app tester is familiar with these testing tools, it will ease the QA activities. There are several best mobile app testing tools for manual & automation. But we understand that choosing the best mobile app testing tools would be based on your testing requirements. Some companies prefer to go with AWS Device Farm over BrowserStack/SauceLabs for this very same reason.
In this blog article, we have listed the best mobile app testing tools and mentioned the key features of each tool so that you could choose the best mobile app testing tools for your needs.
Appium
Let’s begin the listing from Appium. Everyone is aware of Appium’s features and purpose and by any chance, if you don’t, we have got you covered with this article which explains the features of Appium. Appium is a widely used mobile app test automation tool for Android & iOS.
Using Appium, you can automate mobile web, native, and even Hybrid Apps. Appium uses the below UI testing framework to automate mobile apps.
- XCUITest – Apple introduced the XCUITest framework in the year 2015. XCUITest is supported only on iOS 9.3 or higher. WebDriverAgent (WDA) plays a crucial role to run the commands on a Simulator/Real Device.
- UIAutomation – UIAutomation was used to perform UI actions on mobile apps that run on iOS 9.3 or lower. Appium still supports UIAutomation. However, you would be needing XCode 7/lower and iOS simulators/ devices with version 9.3 or lower.
- UiAutomator/UiAutomator2 – UIAutomator is for Android Apps. You can perform user actions on the ‘App Under Test’ (AUT) and other mobile operations like Turning on WIFI and Accessing the Settings menu.
- WinAppDriver – Appium supports Windows Desktop App Automation Testing as well. If WinAppDriver is installed on a Windows Machine, Appium can launch a Windows App and automate the application.
As a leading mobile testing services provider, Codoid uses Python, Java, and C# for scripting. How-ever, Appium has clients for the following programming languages – Ruby, Python, Java, JavaScript (Node.js), JavaScript (Browser), Objective C, PHP, and RobotFramework. So if you are using the latter then Appium is definitely a good option to consider.
AirTest
AirTest is a UI Automation framework to test Mobile Games and Apps. NetEase Games is the creator of AirTest.
To use AirTest effectively, you should be familiar with its features and services.
- AirTest Framework – AirTest identifies mobile app elements based on images. Let’s say you have a mobile gaming app, you can write automated scripts and run them on multiple devices and platforms. AirTest is a good framework to test Mobile Games.
- POCO – If you want to identify dynamic elements, then use POCO. Image-based identification will fail if the expected image is not matched. However, POCO helps you to locate an element using its text, hierarchy, &, etc.
- AirTest IDE – You can create and run test cases using AirTest IDE. AirTest IDE is used to start the AirTest framework.
- AirLab – To run the mobile app automation scripts, you need real devices. AirLab is a cloud service for AirTest. You can run the scripts on cloud real devices thereby making it one of the most important features as it can reduce the cost and infrastructure requirements considerably. There are more options when it comes to using cloud real devices for mobile app testing that we would be seeing further in this article.
BrowserStack
Managing an in-house mobile test lab is overhead for a QA team. Testing teams should be laser-focused on test strategy, test case creation, test execution, and test automation script development. Any additional responsibilities will slow down the testing feedback.
If you are managing physical mobile devices for mobile app testing, you need to ensure WIFI connection, Battery level, deleting the old app version, &, etc. Testing mobile apps using your office network does not simulate real-world conditions.
The entire point of testing these apps is to see how well it will fare in real-world conditions. This is where BrowserStack comes into play as using BrowserStack, you can access real devices for manual and automation testing. To test a mobile app with low internet bandwidth, you can launch a mobile device with the mentioned network condition. This is what makes BrowserStack one of the best mobile app testing tools available.
Appium scripts can also be executed on cloud real devices. But BrowserStack is a popular cloud testing platform because they add a new version of devices in short time-frames.
App Inspector
Element locating strategy is an important skill for a mobile app automation tester. To write a robust locator for an element, you need to view the element’s complete details. App Inspector is a simple yet effective mobile app testing tool that exposes the UI in a tree view and suggests XPath for Android and iOS. Skill is vital when it comes to testing and the tools used also becomes an important factor for successful test automation.
AWS Device Farm
AWS Device Farm is another cloud testing platform. You can access real devices for automation and manual testing and we have already mentioned the benefit of that. AWS Device Farm currently supports the following frameworks – Appium Java JUnit, Appium Java TestNG, Appium Python, Calabash, Instrumentation (Including JUnit, Espresso, Robotium, and any instrumentation-based tests), UI Automation, UI Automator, and XCTest (Including XCUI and KIF). This makes AWS Device Farm a mobile app testing tool to keep an eye out for.
Whatever apps and files you have uploaded will be removed after a span of 30 days. However, screenshots, videos, test reports, and logs are retained for 15 months.
Test Flight
Adding UDIDs for test devices and managing & tracking testing feedback from different mobile app testers were common problems for iOS developers. If you were one of those iOS developers then TestFlight is the answer to your long-running problem. In TestFlight, you can share builds for testing and the testers can share the testing feedback. In the latest TestFlight version, when there is a new build, it will be shared automatically for testing. This is why Test Flight makes the cut in our list of best mobile testing tools.
Perfecto Mobile
If you are a non-technical person and would like to explore code-less automation testing, you can use Perfecto IDE for mobile app testing. As an automation testing company, we don’t recommend code-less automation testing for large test suites. Sometimes you may not achieve complex E2E automation test scenarios using code-less automation testing. However, Perfecto supports Gherkin style frameworks. You can also integrate the Quantum BDD framework using it. Given these features and its ease of use, Perfecto Mobile becomes one of the best choices.
Perfecto provides highly secured cloud real devices for automation testing. If your testing needs audio or video inputs, you can inject the required files and get the job done. We, at Codoid, use Perfecto for ELearning Testing Services.
Espresso
Espresso is created by Google and bundled in the Android SDK. Espresso is best suited for Android UI testing. So if your team is developing only Android apps or a majority of Android apps, then Espresso is the way to go because everyone in the team can contribute to automation testing. We recommend Espresso for Android developers and not for testers because it is hard to find teams nowadays that develop only Android apps. So the biggest strength of Espresso is also its biggest pitfall.
Apptim
Apptim is a desktop application that is fairly new to the market of mobile app testing. Apptim lets you create a test session and test a mobile app. This feature is why Apptim is in this list of the best mobile app testing tools. Let’s say you have tested the mobile app’s V1 version in Test Session-1. When you are testing the app again for V2, you can compare the two test session’s performance to identify performance issues easily and work on fixing them. This makes Apptim one handy tool to keep at your disposal.
Conclusion
Many mobile app testing tools are emerging every year. However, choosing the best mobile app testing tools after a careful review will make your testing very efficient and effective. Wrong tool choices will waste your team’s time and may slow down the testing process. As a mobile app testing company, we recommend mobile testing tools for our clients based on their individual requirements. We hope that this article would help you in building your very own set of mobile app testing tools that fits best for you. Happy Testing!
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