Top tools for automated UI testing in 2024

User interface (UI) testing is crucial when developing new products or updating existing ones. You need to make sure your app or service is convenient for everyone to use and identify bugs, if there are any.

Automated UI testing tools make that process easier. They allow you to conduct diverse and thorough tests quickly. With so many testing applications on the market, it’s important to research and choose the one that’s right for you and your business.

UI testing assesses how a user interacts with a product to make sure it looks good and works as expected. It’s all about ensuring the interface behaves the way it should—buttons click, forms submit, and layouts appear correctly across different devices. It’s key to creating people-centered products and services.

Here are some of the types of UI testing:

1. Visual testing

This involves checking how the app or website looks. Are the fonts, colors, images, and layouts correct? Does everything display as intended on different screen sizes? This part focuses on the design and layout being clean and consistent.

2. Functionality testing

This part of UI testing ensures all the elements of the interface work. Can the user click buttons, fill out forms, or navigate through menus? If a user submits a form, does it work correctly? It verifies that the app behaves like it’s supposed to from a user’s perspective.

3. Usability testing

Here, the focus is on how easy it is to use the app. Are the buttons in the right places? Is the interface intuitive? Usability testing evaluates the user experience—whether a person can navigate the interface without feeling confused or frustrated.

4. Compatibility testing

This checks if the app works across different devices, browsers, and operating systems. It makes sure that users have a consistent experience whether they’re using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, or accessing the app on iOS or Android.

5. Performance testing

This test checks whether there’s any lag when users interact with elements of the product. It’s about making sure everything runs smoothly without slowing down or freezing up, especially under heavy usage.

Automated UI testing is a process where software scripts test cases. This is often faster and more reliable than traditional manual testing, which involves a tester going through a product manually, simulating what a user might do.

Why is automated UI testing important?

UI testing plays a critical role in debugging software and improving the user experience. Traditional or manual testing still has its place. However, when you have many tests to carry out, automation lets you scale your efforts while improving accuracy.

With today’s tools, it’s more cost-effective to use automated testing. If you rely solely on manual testing, you’ll be limited in the number of tests you can run and may start lagging behind your competitors.

Advantages of automated UI testing

Testing UI automatically has several important benefits.

• Higher accuracy: more accurate than human testing in many instances.

• Faster results: testing is significantly faster than manual testing.

• Effortless scalability: reusable test scripts make it easy to scale testing efforts.

• Proactive bug detection: detects errors early, allowing for fixes before product launch.

• Cost-effective: companies save money by using automated tools rather than hiring employees for testing.

• Improves the user experience: the whole point of testing is to create more user-friendly products. Automated UI testing results in a smoother, more reliable user experience, reducing frustration and improving the user’s overall satisfaction with your product.

These are some of the common components of effective AI testing:

Test scripts

Test scripts are fundamental to automated testing. A test script is a program that carries out tests on the application. It provides detailed instructions for testing various functionalities.

Test frameworks

Test automation frameworks are the guidelines used to create and run tests. A key element of testing frameworks is ensuring applications work in a way that’s convenient and efficient for users.

These are three main types of test frameworks:

• Data-driven: this type of framework uses data from sources like database tables, script arrays, and Excel sheets. It’s useful for running tests where a single test has multiple datasets.

• Keyword-driven: these test cases are based on keywords. This approach is easier for testers without a strong technical background.

• Hybrid: this type of framework combines elements from data-driven and keyword-driven frameworks.

CI/CD

Continuous integration and continuous delivery, or CI/CD, is a set of principles that employ automated and repeatable actions in software development. When you apply this to testing, CI/CD requires ongoing tests to ensure that all functional requirements are met.

When choosing an automated UI testing tool, it’s important to consider your product and testing requirements. Different tools offer varying levels of automation, browser support, and integration capabilities. If your product involves complex user interactions, you’ll need a tool that can handle those specific scenarios, such as cross-browser testing or mobile compatibility.

Here are some examples of features and characteristics you’ll want to consider when selecting a tool to facilitate your automated UI testing:

Reporting/analytics

You’ll ideally need a tool that provides comprehensive reporting and analytics as it will be able to provide insights into your test results. This is key to helping teams quickly identify issues, track progress, and make data-driven decisions to improve the user experience.

Platform compatibility

If you want to run tests across various devices, operating systems, and browsers to maintain consistent performance and appearance for all users, this feature is a must-have.

Accessibility and responsiveness

Tests for accessibility compliance (like WCAG standards) and responsiveness across different screen sizes and resolutions ensure a seamless experience for all users, including those with disabilities.

Ease of use

Look for tools with user-friendly interfaces and intuitive features that allow your teams to create, execute, and manage tests efficiently. You don’t want there to be a large learning curve as this could delay test implementation.

Integrations with other tools

Compatibility with development, testing, and project management tools (like Jira, Jenkins, or Git) allows for smooth collaboration, streamlined workflows, and continuous testing throughout the development lifecycle.

Customization options

Choosing a tool with customization options allows testers to tailor automated tests to specific UI elements, workflows, and unique project needs. This provides flexibility in test design.

Support for multiple programming languages

The tool should ideally enable your developers to write scripts in the language they are most comfortable with. For this, it will need to accommodate various coding environments.

Test maintenance

Test maintenance is crucial in automated UI testing because UIs often change over time. A tool with strong maintenance capabilities reduces the need for your team to be making constant script updates. This ensures efficient, reliable testing, saving time and minimizing disruption during ongoing development.

Test coverage

In addition to the UI’s functional elements, you may also need your UI testing tool to cover non-functional aspects such as performance under load, security vulnerabilities, and overall stability.

Scale of testing needed

Considering the scale of your testing needs is crucial when selecting a tool for automated UI testing.

If your project requires frequent, large-scale testing across multiple browsers, devices, or user scenarios, you’ll need a tool that supports high-volume, parallel test executions efficiently. A small project requiring fewer tests might not require the same level of complexity. In this case, you may be better off with a lighter, more affordable UI testing tool.

Licensing and pricing

Pricing and licensing are key factors to consider when choosing an automated UI testing tool. Costs can vary widely based on features, user limits, and support. Considering your budget and long-term usage needs ensures you select a cost-effective solution without unnecessary limitations.

Some tools may offer flexible pricing models and free plans. There are also many free open-source tools.

Community support

You want to be able to get help when you need it. Paid tools usually offer several types of support. Open-source projects often have communities where other users can contribute answers to your questions.

Here are our recommendations for the best UI automation tools currently available:

Selenium

Selenium is a free, open-source suite of testing tools for web browser interactions. A robust tool, it’s designed to mimic how users interact with browsers.

The tool has capabilities that work with multiple browsers, languages, and platforms. It’s widely used by companies, developers, engineers, educational institutions, students, consultants, and more.

Benefits:

• Free and open-source

• Cross-platform functionality includes Windows, MacOS, and Linux

• Cross-browser testing works with Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and others

• Parallel testing capabilities let you perform multiple tests simultaneously

Appium

Appium is an open-source project that helps automate mobile apps on many platforms. It supports a variety of tools, languages, and test frameworks.

Appium has a large and supportive community that keeps it flexible and constantly evolving.

Benefits:

• Free and open-source

• Supports the most popular programming languages such as C#, Java, and Python

• User-friendly interface makes it convenient to create tests

• Enables the automation of iOS and Android tests with the same API

• Supports testing on mobile, web, native, and hybrid applications

• Lots of community support

Katalon Studio

Katalon is a comprehensive test automation tool used by many large companies, including Nvidia, Deloitte, IBM, and Petronas. It’s designed to be easy for new users to learn while providing advanced capabilities for experts.

The tool offers a free plan as well as “Premium” and “Ultimate” plans that provide more features.

Benefits:

• Works seamlessly with many other tools—GitHub, Google Cloud Build, AWS CodeBuild, AppDynamics, Selenium, LambdaTest, Jira, and many others

• Create automated tests without advanced programming skills

• Supports many types of testing, including accessibility testing, CI/CD, model-based testing, visual testing, performance testing, cross-browser testing, mobile testing, and more

LambdaTest

LambdaTest is an AI-powered testing platform with over a million users. It supports automated AI testing on many platforms.

You can try it for free by running one parallel test. Paid plans start from $15/month.

Benefits:

• Provides real-time testing on more than 3,000 browsers and OS combinations

• More than 120 integrations with third-party tools for bug testing, CI/CD, codeless automation, and project management

• Automated UI testing with Playwright, Cypress, Puppeteer, and Selenium

• Automated device testing on iOS and Android devices

Playwright

Playwright is an open-source tool supporting end-to-end testing for all kinds of modern web apps. It allows for cross-platform testing in multiple languages.

Playwright is used by many companies and open-source projects, including Adobe, Disney Hotstar, Github, and Microsoft Bing.

Benefits:

• Free and open-source

• Supports many rendering engines, including Chromium, Firefox, and Webkit

• Runs tests in your browser, making it fast and convenient

• One-time login—save the authentication state of the context and reuse it without having to log in repeatedly

Cypress

Cypress is a Javascript-based UI testing tool. It can help you run faster and more accurate tests for all types of modern web applications.

You can take advantage of the tool’s free 14-day trial. Paid plans start from $67/month.

Benefits:

• Lets you validate tests in real time without leaving your browser

• Easy installation via direct download, npm, or yarn

• Time travel to observe your application’s performance at every stage—just hover over any command to restore it to the state it was in when first executed

• Many plugins, preprocessors, and development tools to extend the tool’s functionality

TestComplete

TestComplete is one of the tools offered by SmartBear, which has many testing and API monitoring products. In addition to automated UI testing, TestComplete supports GUI object recognition, mobile testing, and keyword-driven testing.

When signing up for a plan, you can choose from mobile, desktop, or web options. TestComplete doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can sign up for a demo before you buy to see the tool in action.

Benefits:

• Easy collaboration for technical and non-technical users, enabling them to run tests for mobile, desktop, or web-based applications

• Lets you record and replay functions

• Build complex test scripts without coding

• Supports many languages, including JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, DelphiScript, C#, and C+

TestCafe

TestCafe is a user-friendly end-to-end testing solution. It’s a good choice if you’re looking for a free and open-source tool with a streamlined approach that makes it easy to run tests quickly.

Benefits:

• Works with all popular CI/CD tools

• Built-in “Debug Mode” lets you identify problems quickly

• Works with all common browsers—Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems

• Offers a large selection of guides to help you run many kinds of tests

Robot Framework

Robot Framework is a generic open-source automation framework. It can be used for acceptance testing, robotic process automation (RPA), and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). The project is hosted on GitHub.

Benefits:

• Uses a keyword-driven framework that doesn’t require programming knowledge.

• Contains a built-in library that contains frequently used keywords

• Useful for testing repetitive tasks such as data processing, app navigation, and data input

No matter what tool you’re using, it’s important to follow certain guidelines to get useful information from your testing.

Use manual testing when appropriate

While automated testing is valuable in many instances, including repetitive tasks, it doesn’t completely remove the need for manual testing.

Incorporating manual UI testing is crucial for identifying nuanced issues that automated tests might miss. Manual testing allows testers to explore the application intuitively, providing insights into user experience and usability. Testers can interact with the application as real users would, uncovering unexpected behaviors and gathering qualitative feedback.

Combining both automated and manual testing methods ensures comprehensive coverage, balancing speed and efficiency with a deeper understanding of user interactions and interface design.

Prioritize the most critical tests

You have limited resources, so it’s essential to prioritize your testing. Prioritizing critical tests in automated UI testing ensures that essential functionalities are verified first, minimizing the risk of major issues impacting users.

By focusing on key features, teams can quickly identify and address critical bugs, enhance the overall stability of the application, and optimize resource allocation. This approach improves efficiency and ensures a smoother user experience from the start.

Keep project requirements in mind

To create effective test cases, you need to be thoroughly familiar with the project requirements. To identify the most essential tests, you want to focus on features and functionalities that are fundamental to the project’s goals.

Provide detailed documentation

You’ll need to thoroughly document all test results. This helps inform the need for future testing and lets you avoid redundancy. It’s also necessary for communicating the project’s status to stakeholders.

Practice regular maintenance

To get the most out of testing, you need to consistently maintain tests. Without regular maintenance, tests can get flaky or produce false positives.

This process involves updating or rewriting tests as needed and removing tests that are outdated or redundant. Ideally, you should be using an automation tool that supports maintenance.

Share findings across teams

When there are multiple teams working on UI testing, they should be in close communication with one another. If not, teams could be performing duplicate tests or working at cross purposes.

Teams can share knowledge with each other to facilitate more efficient testing.

Yes. UI testing increases efficiency by quickly running repetitive tests. This ensures consistent results and frees up time for more complex testing. By enabling you to catch bugs early, it enhances software quality and provides a better user experience, ultimately saving time and reducing costs in the long run.

There are a few potential drawbacks to automated UI testing, including the following:

• Tools may require an up-front investment. However, this can be avoided if you use an open-source tool. In the long run, automated testing can save you money.

• They require a certain amount of technical proficiency. Some tools, however, are designed to be easy to use for people with varying degrees of technical know-how.

• Automated testing isn’t ideal for all cases. Manual testing is preferable in cases where subjective human feedback is helpful. Imagine you’re assessing the overall user experience of a new app design. Testers can provide subjective feedback on aspects like visual appeal, intuitiveness, and emotional response, which automated tests can’t accurately evaluate.

With both open-source and paid tools available, you may be wondering which is best. You need to consider your needs and budget.

One advantage of paid tools is that you can often access support more easily. Open-source tools may have a helpful community, but it may take longer to find the answer you’re looking for.

If you have a limited budget, you can start with a free tool or plan and consider a paid plan later.