Comparing GUI Automation Testing Tools for Dynamic Web Applications

Automating software testing helps agile teams to release production-ready software as often as needed. There are so many automation testing tools with record/playback features available for test teams to automate functional tests against web applications. However, choosing the right tool can be vital to project success. This paper presents a survey on automation testing tools for web applications. These tools have been chosen from both open-source, namely Selenium and Sahi, and from commercial tools such as TestComplete and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. These tools were compared based on the effectiveness of recorder/playback tools, handling of page waits, cross browser compatibility, technical support, and the number of different techniques available to programmatically locate elements on web pages. Results show that free and simple tools can be more powerful and time saving, compared to commercially sophisticated and expensive tools. This paper also summarizes best practices and guidelines when adopting automated GUI functional tests against web applications, drawing a road-map for test engineers to follow.