What are the Best Mobile Application Testing Tools Available?

Mobile applications have become the go-to tool for people to stay connected to the World Wide Web and carry out a host of activities. These include looking for information, buying products, booking tickets, paying for utility services, playing games, streaming movies, and many more. However, these applications need to perform to their optimum in terms of speed, safety, functionality, usability, and stability to gain customer confidence. Even though mobile applications have become ubiquitous and the perfect vehicle for business enterprises to reach out to their customers on-the-go, enhance brand awareness, and expand their sales funnel, it is worth noting that a majority of such applications launched do not realize their cost of investment.

Thanks to the cutthroat competition in every conceivable domain, it has become challenging for mobile applications to survive, let alone succeed, in the market. According to the CIO, approximately 80% of mobile applications are abandoned after the first use. The reasons could be many; inability to monetize, not having enough features, no proper target audience, and performance issues, among others. In a day and age where customers have plenty of options to fall back on, performance issues can be one of the biggest reasons to abandon an app. This is where mobile application testing becomes critical to validate every functionality and fix any inherent glitches. And to execute mobile app testing and derive the expected outcomes across Android and iOS platforms, there are a number of automation tools available.

Best mobile app testing solutions

The best way to make your mobile application testing strategy a success is to use an effective test automation tool suitable for your business. A list of the same is discussed below:

TestComplete: Offering support for both Android and iOS devices, TestComplete allows you to create test cases and run robust and repeatable UI tests for native and hybrid apps. It allows you to automate the tests on real mobile devices, emulators, or virtual machines. The tester can create automated scripts using script-free record and replay or a host of programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, JScript, and VBScript.

Kobiton: It is a cloud-based testing solution built on top of the Appium mobile application testing framework that gives access to real devices to run both automated and manual tests on web, native, and hybrid apps. The tool is updated regularly when it comes to its operating system and hardware configuration, and can be tested across device platforms without making modifications into the script. Kobiton can create commands, screenshots, activity logs, and metadata for quicker identification of glitches.

Ranorex: It is a paid and easy-to-use mobile test automation tool for testing any mobile app under development. It comes with a Click and Go XPath editor having dynamic ID support. With a professional support service, Ranorex can be easily installed by non-developers and helps with managing the testing of iOS and Android-based native or hybrid mobile applications.

21: It is a powerful but easy-to-use mobile testing and analytics tool for both Android and iOS-based applications. Its AI-driven authoring allows testers to generate automated UI and functional tests in quick time. The tool does not need any locators as its built-in algorithmic locators’ system delivers stable results across frameworks. The AI algorithm automatically updates tests so that the testing team can develop new features relying on the results. When integrated with production, tool 21 can uncover the data required to close the feedback loop, analyze the coverage area, and refer to areas in the application that can maximize ROI.

Eggplant: It is a commercial GUI automation tool to be used as a part of a robust mobile application testing strategy covering Android or iOS-based applications. The tool is highly useful to cover aspects such as image-based testing, UI automation, mobile and network testing, cross-browser testing, web testing, and functional testing. A single script suffices for all platforms and devices, and there is no need to make any changes to the app code when testing the app under test.

Katalon Studio: A leading mobile testing alternative to Appium, having enhanced capabilities for API, web, and desktop testing. Since it does not have any complex setup, it can be easily set up and executed by testers without having any programming background. Its powerful features include record and playback, pre-defined templates, a friendly UI, and built-in keywords. Katalon Studio can be used to visualize key metrics and receive notifications in real-time after every test case execution.

Conclusion

Mobile application testing is a critical phase of the mobile app development lifecycle, for it makes the application secure from glitches and readies it to deliver superior customer experiences. It is only by utilizing a robust tool-based mobile application testing approach that these applications can be made ready for the market.

James Daniel is a software Tech enthusiastic & works at Cigniti Technologies I'm having a great understanding of today's software testing quality