Ever since the iPhone and Android were launched in 2009, the world of web browsing has seen a major shift. As mobile users have grown exponentially, with over 62% of users relying on mobile devices to browse the internet. Even businesses are spending more time and energy to provide a flawless user experience on their mobile web applications with a quite significant portion of their time being spent on mobile web application testing.
According to Flurry, a normal user spends around five hours a day on their mobile device. Thus it becomes vital to engage users on the device they are most comfortable with,, you will have to ensure that your mobile web application meets user’s expectations in terms of speed, functionality, and user interface.
To ensure the seamless performance of your web application you need to perform cross-browser testing to validate your web application on multiple browsers. But, with the enormous growth in testing technologies, it has become very challenging for businesses to select a specific mobile web app testing technology. Also, manual browser testing is no longer an ideal approach for mobile web apps because it is very time consuming, and writing different scripts for every mobile browser is not that simple.
In fact, it becomes very exhaustive, time-consuming, and at times insufficient to perform mobile web app testing without automation. So, if you want to improve your time to market and benefit from frequent deployments, then executing automated tests with the right automation tool is very important.
Related: Review of Comparium: Automated Website Testing Tool
What is Mobile Web Application Testing?
Mobile web application testing is the process of performing cross-browser testing on a web application for its consistency, functionality, and usability over smartphones, tablets, or PCs. It includes the following cross-browser testing categories:
- Functional testing
- Visual UI testing
- Performance testing
- Usability testing
How to Select the Right Automation Tool?
Before going through the best automation mobile web app testing tools, let’s have a look at the critical factors that you should consider while choosing an automation testing tool.
- Support for various scripting languages
Different web applications are developed using different programming languages, so you need to make sure that you choose a tool that supports multiple scripting languages like Java, Python, Ruby, etc.
- Run tests across various mobile browsers
Even though your majority of users might have a preference for browsers, you need to make sure that your web application performs well on every browser out there. This is why you need to test your website for any cross-browser compatibility issues.
- Continuous integration with CI/CD tools
In order to make the deployment more agile, the automation testing tool must integrate quickly with the tools that you’re already using in the CI/CD process.
These are a few factors that you should look for while choosing an automation tool for mobile web app testing. Now, let’s have a look at the best tools available in the market for mobile web app testing.
Best Tools for Mobile Web App Testing
There are more than 100 automation tools available in the market, and choosing one amongst them is really a tough task. But, we have shortlisted the top ten automated testing tools that you can opt for mobile web app testing.
LambdaTest
LambdaTest has been the fastest-growing cross-browser testing cloud, renowned for providing a seamless testing environment to various organizations. It allows you to perform cross-browser testing of your mobile web applications across more than 2000+ browsers, OS, and devices. The cloud-based Selenium Grid on LambdaTest enables you to run automated selenium scripts, as well as live interactive testing on real browser environments quickly. Moreover, it allows you to choose from a wide variety of updated Android and iOS mobile devices to execute UI testing of your web app.
Features –
- Provide extensive support for cross-browser testing your mobile app across all browsers, including Safari, Opera, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, and Yandex.
- Execute Selenium & Appium automation tests on a scalable selenium grid with a combination of more than 2000 browser environments.
- Perform cross-browser testing of your mobile web applications in parallel.
- Automatically capture full-page screenshots of your web application in bulk across different browsers & OS. They also got a Google Chrome extension and a WordPress Plugin for this feature.
- Responsive testing
- Perform a pixel-to-pixel comparison to resolve issues related to padding, icon size, layout, screen resolution, element’s position with smart visual ui testing.
TestComplete
TestComplete by SmartBear is one of the oldest UI automation testing tools that has still maintained a top position in the market. It is an incredible utility that enables testers to build, maintain, and execute test scripts for both desktop and mobile web apps. Using TestComplete, you can quickly create and run repeatable UI tests for both hybrid and native mobile applications.
Features –
- Provide flexibility and easiness to run tests across emulators, real devices, or virtual machines
- Support almost every scripting language. Including JavaScript, VBScript, Delphi Script, Python, C#, and C++
- Quick and easy integration with the most popular CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Jira, and Git
- Improve overall test coverage while ensuring high-quality and fast delivery of your product
- Allow UI automation testing on real mobile devices, virtual machines, and emulators, as well as supports both Android and iOS devices
- The record and replay features allow you to create automated test scripts without writing a single line of code
Calabash
It is an open-source testing tool that offers quick and seamless interaction between the test code and both hybrid and native mobile apps programmatically. This mechanized testing framework is supported by Xamarin and can be compared with Selenium Web Driver. With Calabash, you can perform automated mobile web app testing across more than 1000 devices in a cloud-based environment.
Features –
- Compromises of two open-source libraries, which include both Android and iOS for testing local and hybrid web apps
- Provide great functionality for web applications developed in Ruby, Java, .NET, Flex, and other programming dialects
- Primarily utilized for executing automated functional testing of local mobile web applications
- The libraries included with Calabash allow test codes to collaborate with local and half applications automatically
- Provide APIs that are specific to local mobile apps running on smartphones
Calabash provides internal support for the Cucumber framework, which makes it ideal for testers to state the behavior of an application with simple English.
Appium
Appium is another open-source automated testing framework that allows you to build UI tests for both native and hybrid mobile web apps. It is an ideal testing framework that can be used for both Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as it also supports regression testing for both the platforms. The features of Appium are almost similar to Selenium, so if you have experience in using the Selenium suite, then you won’t face any problem in setting up Appium.
Features –
- An ideal testing tool for applications that are written in Android and iOS SDK
- Can easily be synchronized with TestNG testing framework
- Comes with built-in UIAutomator that is helpful in creating useful and point by point reports
- Support Safari browser on iOS devices and all other browsers on Android devices
- Doesn’t require any modification in test scripts for testing, as it can run tests continuously on both Android and iOS platforms using a device or emulator
- Specially used for automated functional testing of versatile Android and iOS applications
Appium can easily be set up on any system, and you can utilize any webdriver with it that supports the following programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, Objective C.
Kobiton
Kobiton is a mobile device cloud platform that gives you full access over smartphones for testing with multi-touch signals, camera, and speaker control, GPS re-enactments, and gadgets association administration. So, if you want on-demand access to real devices or perform instant functional testing across 350+ devices, Kobiton can provide you with everything. Using Kobiton, you can run both manual and automated tests across native and hybrid Android/iOS apps.
Features –
- A cell-phone based cloud platform that gives you access to genuine devices for executing both automated and manual tests on local, web, and hybrid Android/iOS apps
- Built on the Appium open-source framework
- Doesn’t require a script modification to run tests across various devices
- Generates activity logs, screenshots, commands, and metadata automatically that allow quick identification of bugs
- Provides centralized testing history and information logs for expanded coordinated efforts
Kobiton keeps adding the latest hardware and OS updates to the internal device lab for better testing of web apps.
Appium Studio
Experitest created Appium Studio for automated UI testing of mobile web apps with the help of Appium Selenium WebDriver API. We can say that it is an advanced version of Appium, which is used for desktop web app testing. The primary reason we mentioned Appium Studio in this list is that it eliminates the problems encountered with Appium for mobile app testing. It helps testers to perform high-quality testing of mobile web apps in the minimum amount of time.
Features –
- Composes and records tests easily with the help of gadget reflection, XPath, and Object Spy
- Capable of testing iOS applications on Window platform
- Cover more utility cases on any gadget, as well as with any application whether it’s local, web, native, or hybrid
- Capable of testing outside your application with sound highlights, counting standardized identification, GPS re-enactment, TouchID, and framework applications
- Provide well-ordered test reports with crystal clear screenshots and recordings
Appium Studio helps businesses perform web app testing within a few minutes while decreasing operational expenses and improving scope out-of-application testing.
Bitbar Testing (Formerly Testdroid)
Bitbar Testing is a cloud-based testing platform that is entirely focused on saving application improvement costs by decreasing operational expenses. It offers a unified experience for testing teams by allowing them to test their application against numerous hardware configurations. It gives access to 300+ genuine gadgets that run on both Android and iOS platforms.
Features –
- Designed by Bitbar technologies, Bitbar Testing is a combination of versatile programming improvements and testing items
- Ideal for Agile development and mobile web app testing
- Provide access to API via open-source programming that can be accessed on GitHub
- The fastest testing tool that allows you to publicize your application
Bitbar Testing not only helps in improving application rating, but it also reduces operational and unpredictable costs.
Monkey Talk
Monkey Talk is amongst one of the highest-rated open-source testing tools that can be utilized to test both iOS and Android applications. It comprises three segments, which include IDE, the Scripts, and the Operator. What makes Monkey Talk an ideal choice for testers is that it is easy to learn and set up. Whether you want to execute short smoke tests or complicated data-driven test suits, Monkey Talk can help you with everything.
Features –
- Ideal for automating functional and UI testing across multiple Android and iOS devices
- Doesn’t require any solid programming or scripting knowledge, as scripts are basic and justified
- The IDE segment of the tool can be used to record and playback the test contents
- Capable of creating both XML and HTML reports, as well as capture a screenshot when an error or bug occurs while executing tests
- Provides in-built support for Jenkins and Hudson for the purpose of continuous integration
Money Talk can be pretty helpful for mobile web apps that have a complicated user interface or functionality.
Robotium
If you want to perform UI testing of your mobile web app across the Android platform only, then there is no better tool than Robotium, which is an open-source testing tool. It supports the testing of native and hybrid apps across all Android platforms and majorly used for automated black-box testing. The tests in Robotium are prepared and executed in Java programming.
Features –
- Provides an open-source library that is outlined particularly for Android UI testing
- Capable of handling multiple Android activities in parallel
- Easy synchronization with Ant or Maven frameworks for executing tests as a part of continuous integration
- Allowing running tests on pre-installed applications
The only drawback of Robotium is that it uses program source code, which takes a considerable time to get the test cases ready. Also, it doesn’t offer screen capturing, play, and record functions.
Espresso
Espresso is popular amongst testing teams because it is developed by Google, and can be integrated with Android Studio easily. Every developer who works with native Android applications is familiar with Espresso. It is almost similar to TestComplete, which has several options for generating test scripts. But, Espresso is ideal for Android UI testing only, as it doesn’t support other OSs.
Features –
- A platform-specific framework that supports all Android applications
- Allow creating manual tests with Kotlin and Java to perform UI testing of specific elements
- Provides a simple and flexible API for seamless testing of web apps
- Enable executing UI testing on both emulators and real devices
- Provide record and playback facility of tests with the in-built Espresso Test Recorder
Overall, Espresso is an excellent option if you want to execute UI testing of your mobile web app across Android devices and browsers.
Conclusion
Improving mobile web app quality and UI has become a critical requirement for businesses, and they need a robust and secure selenium automation testing suite for this process because there are various mobile browsers and devices available in the market, and executing manual tests on every browser and device will take a lot of time. In this article, we have discussed the best mobile web app testing tools that you can choose from according to your requirements.