10 Best Mobile Test Automation Tools
Nowadays, testers prefer automated mobile application testing than manual mobile application testing in almost every software testing process. It is because automated testing helps save time, detect errors more efficiently, and recognize the steps (if any) that had been accidentally left out while executing the testing process.
However, using any mobile test automation tools that come your way cannot bring out the expected results. For that, you have to use the best among them. Here is a list of the 10 best mobile test automation tools that can help you execute the software testing process efficiently:
This open source test automation tool is used to perform cross-platform test automation. Appium supports native, mobile, web and hybrid apps and is used to perform automated functional testing for Android and iOS mobile applications. Using Appium, tests can be performed on any framework or any language that can create an HTTP request. Also, there is no need to alter any app code to perform the testing as Appium is suitable to run on Android or iOS on real devices or emulators.
Robotium is an open source library that has been solely designed to perform Android UI testing. It is suitable for performing mobile test automation for different versions and sub-versions of Android. Robotium is used to perform automated black box testing for Android applications with TestDroid Recorder. The test scripts created by Robotium are written in Java. Using this tool, test case developers can write function, system and user acceptance test scenarios, which spans multiple Android activities.
Listed below are the benefits of using Robotium:
Framework automatically handles multiple Android activities
Requires minimal knowledge of the application under test
Requires minimal time for writing solid test cases
Greatly improved readability of test cases
More robust test cases due to the runtime binding to UI components
Fast execution of test cases
Smooth integration with Maven, Gradle or Ant for running tests as part of continuous integration
Maintained by Xamarin, Calabash is an automated acceptance testing framework that consists of two open source libraries, one for iOS and the other one for Android. Calabash is used to perform automated functional testing for native and hybrid mobile applications. It works effectively with Ruby, Java, .NET, Flex, and many other programming languages.
If you want to determine the number of users a mobile application can handle at a time, the only way is to perform a load test on it. WebLOAD helps you perform stress test in any scenario, thus, helping you understand the iOS and Android user experience. It is possible to replicate real mobile user experience by simulating or running real mobile devices using WebLOAD. Also, it comes with a real-time web dashboard where you can keep track of the load tests, of mobile gadgets, on any device.
5. MonkeyTalk
MonkeyTalk helps in performing automated interactive functional testing for iOS and Android apps. It is an open source test automation tool that consists of three components: IDE, Agents and Scripts. IDE makes test scripts using record and playback. Agent is a test instrumentation library that links to the app. The scripts include keywords, syntax, and Java execution engines. Be it the simple smoke tests or the tough data-driven tests that MonkeyTalk performs, they are suitable for native, hybrid and web-based apps.
Testing With Frank is an open source test automation framework integrating Cucumber and JSON that works only for iOS apps. There are no changes to be made to the app code. Frank cannot be run directly on any devices. It is only most suitable for native and web-based apps.
KIF (short for “Keep It Functional”) is an open source test automation framework meant for iOS mobile app UI testing. KIF uses Accessibility APIs built into iOS to simulate real user interactions. All tests for KIF are written in Objective-C, which allows for maximum integration with your code while minimizing the number of layers you need to build. Aside from that, KIF integrates directly into your Xcode project, so there is no need to run an additional web server or install any additional packages. It also has wide OS and Xcode coverage and automatic integration with Xcode testing tools.
Selendroid is an open source test automation framework that can interact with various devices and emulators at the same time. It also supports hot-swapping. Selendroid suits hybrid, mobile and web applications, and its test codes are based on Selenium 2 and the WebDriver API.
The other key features of Selendroid are as follows:
No modification of the app under test required to automate it
UI elements can be found by different locator types
Full integration as a node into Selenium Grid for scaling and parallel testing
Can be extended at runtime with your own extensions
Kobiton is a mobile device cloud platform that allows real devices to run manual and automated tests on native, web and hybrid Android/iOS apps. It is built on top of Appium test automation framework and continuously adds latest hardware and OS updates to the device lab. With Kobiton, it is possible to perform tests without modifying the script. The automatically created activity logs, commands, screenshots, and metadata help recognize issues quickly. Key features of Kobiton include device lab management, rich test logs, agile test enabler, and powerful APIs.
iOS Driver is an open source test automation tool that uses Selenium and the WebDriver API for iOS mobile application testing. The tool can be run a node into Selenium Grid and can be used in an existing Selenium Grid to manage device/simulator farm. It usually runs on emulators (than on devices), where the software testing process is faster and scalable. The latest version of iOS Driver works with mobile devices, but the testing process is performed slowly. The app codes do not require any alterations and, also, there is no need to load any extra apps in the device where the testing process is being performed.
