In the digital era of the 21st century, when people are connected to their smartphones everywhere, the high quality of mobile applications is a must. Mobile app development companies tend to develop and deliver applications that satisfy the users and provide a great user experience. Delivering a delightful product that meets the end-users’ expectations isn’t a one-click action. Different mobile application testing tools and techniques are developed, that aim at providing solutions that provide a hassle-free experience.

In this article, I’m going to introduce the best mobile app testing tools. These are practices of mobile app testing techniques and frameworks that are very popular. We’ll also identify how to use them. So, let’s go on!

#1 Appium

Appium is one of the well-known open-source techniques of automated testing of mobile applications. This is both an iOS and Android app testing tool that is widely used for testing native and cross-platform applications by the specialists who provide quality assurance. This tool automates the testing process for:

native mobile apps that are written using Android, iOS, as well as Windows SDKs

that are written using Android, iOS, as well as Windows SDKs mobile web apps that are accessible for smartphone browsers such as Safari or Chrome, as well as any other in-built native browsers that are developed by Android OS

that are accessible for smartphone browsers such as Safari or Chrome, as well as any other in-built native browsers that are developed by Android OS hybrid mobile apps that offer a native wrapper around the web view

Appium is an HTML server written in a Node.js platform and it works with WebDriver. This tool works on server architecture and provides an opportunity to use the possible WebDriver clients in order to fire testing. With Appium, the test script is possible to write in several programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, and C#.

#2 Kobiton

Kobiton is one of the mobile app testing techniques that is much introduced as a mobile experience platform. This is a cloud-based solution that aims to increase the speed of application testing and delivery, providing not only automated but also manual testing.

Due to this tool, you may easily run automation testing of both iOS and Android operating systems within their own real devices. Thanks to its automatically generated activity logs, Kobiton is able to capture every session during the overall testing process. Accordingly, all the issues are easily identified and solved faster.

#3 Calabash

This is one of the most testing methods that work with various programming languages such as Java, Ruby, Flex, .Net. QA specialists get a chance to use APIs in order to enable native apps. The rich library of Calabash allows the test scripts to programmatically interact both with native and cross-platform applications.

Calabash requires Ruby 2.0 or a higher operating system. In the case of iOS devices, they must include the Xamarin Test Cloud Agent.

#4 Ranorex Studio

Ranorex is a complete solution for application testing. This platform is easy to use for beginners, yet, it is a great source for automation experts with a full IDE. Ranorex Studio supports iOS and Android operating systems. It offers testing mobile native as well as web applications.

This testing studio provides decent object identification. It is responsible for archives of shareable objects and code modules that can be used again. As a result, Ranorex provides efficient test creation and lower maintenance. Thanks to this tool, it is possible to test on real devices without breakouts. Ranorex offers video reporting of test execution so that you can see what happens during the testing process. This testing technique easily integrates with tools like Jira, TestRail, Jenkins, Git, Travis CI, and many more.

#5 Unified Functional Testing (UFT)

Unified Functional Testing (UFT) is an industry-standard solution built for test automation. Originally, it was known as QTP (Quick Test Professional). Currently, it is a part of MicroFocus. This tool facilitates the testing process and provides more efficiency due to collaboration. The benefits of Unified Functional Testing are the followings:

✔ An established industry-standard testing tool

✔ Updates are released often

✔ Full support for testers

✔ Ability to leverage MicroFocus’ ecosystem

✔ Robust solution – easier for less experienced testers to use

#6 Espresso

Espresso is a testing framework for testing the UI of Android applications. The framework is created by Google. Using Espresso, you get a chance to write automated tests and to make sure that everything works as expected. You may easily discover any regression before they can happen. Due to its advantages such as creating Screen Robots, you can speed up the test writing even more. These Screen Robots are helper functions that catch the possible repetition in the testing processes, such as filling out a form.

#7 Experitest

Experitest is a superior mobile application testing platform. Due to its automated testing features, Experitest increases the speed of mobile testing processes as well as the quality of delivery. The great thing is that this advanced platform is easy to use both for QA specialists and programmers. Experitest offers a lot of features:

✔ Develop and deal with multiple automated tests

✔ Run large-scale Appium tests (in any language) across more than thousands of Android and iOS devices

✔ Increase mobile test automation coverage

✔ Easily integrate into any IDE, testing framework, or CI

✔ Access visual test reports and analytics

✔ Edit the tests into the automation process

#8 MonkeyRunner

The MonkeyRunner tool offers an API for writing projects that control an Android device or any emulator outside of the Android code. All the tests are written in Python, yet, in order to create tests, one may use a recording tool. The only disadvantage of MonkeyRunner is that it is required to write scripts for every device yet the tests need adjustments each time when the UI (User Interface) of the tested project is changed. Below get familiar with the benefits of MonkeyRunner:

✔ It can control various devices

✔ One doesn’t have to deal with the source codes in order to automate tests

✔ It is used for automated functional testing

✔ Monkeyrunner is also used for regression testing

✔ Jython allows the MonkeyRunner API to interact with Android applications

Summing Up

Checking out the above list of options, it may be overwhelming to find out where to start. In the end, all of these techniques and technologies improve the automated testing process. Going deeper you will discover that each framework has too many pros and cons. Generally, the right choice of the framework pretends to ask questions like “how a team functions?”, “who writes the tests?”, and many more than simply looking at the list of technical features. In the end, what matters is to choose the mobile application testing tool that best fits the specific features of your application as well as the preferences of the QA team.