While TestComplete has been around for decades and may be a familiar name to many in the software testing space, its lengthy history in the market doesn’t make it an automatic fit in many cases.
If your team is considering whether or not SmartBear TestComplete is a good fit for your needs, these pros and cons will help you get up to speed quickly with key insights from consumer reviews.
Overview of SmartBear TestComplete
Developed by SmartBear Software, TestComplete was originally released in 1999 by AutomatedQA and has evolved quite a lot since then.
Focused on providing automated UI testing solutions, TestComplete contains three modules for desktop, web and mobile, with each module providing functionality to create automated tests for that particular platform. That said, TestComplete also automates functional testing, database testing, and other back-end testing.
Over the years, TestComplete has also been used for testing a wide range of types of applications spanning across Web, Windows, Android, iOS, WPF, HTML5, Flash, Flex, Silverlight, .NET, VCL and Java, which may be appealing to teams managing software projects that may follows in the same vein.
Based in the greater Boston area, SmartBear is backed by $25 million in total past funding, so their team and project can be considered well-funded and stable.
Key offerings of TestComplete
- Automated UI test building with a scriptless Record and Replay feature that supports playback on a wide range of desktop, web and mobile applications. Keyword-driven tests are also supported for easy creation of automated UI tests.
- AI-powered object recognition engine identifies dynamic UI elements leveraging both element property recognition and AI-powered visual recognition. Objects can be managed in a single locally managed repository or shared with others.
- Data-driven testing allows for separating test commands from data to make maintenance easier. Different sets of input data can be leveraged while running automated tests to improve test coverage.
- Keyword-driven testing as alluded to above is another prominent solution provided by TestComplete, allowing less technical team members to create test cases without significant programming knowledge, even for some complex scenarios.
- Automated test reuse allows TestComplete users to reuse automated UI tests across projects and environments, which can provide significant efficiency gains for projects.
- Automated test reporting and analysis provides real-time progress and status updates for tests from a single reporting interface and is easy to connect to popular ticket tracking systems like Jira and Bugzilla.
- Continuous testing for DevOps is a must these days, and TestComplete provides needed features like a Command Line Interface, a REST API, and support for integration into continuous tools like Jenkins and Azure DevOps, as well as source control systems like Git and test management tools like Zephyr.
- Intelligent quality add-on provides a solution for testing aspects of software that were previously mostly untestable, like complex on-screen application components and validating information contained within images, charts, PDFs and frames.
- Support across browsers and devices allows you to write an automated test once in a single browser and then execute it across other real browsers or devices locally or virtually in the cloud, spanning Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS operating systems across all browser configurations.
- Parallel testing allows for the execution of tests in parallel across multiple physical and virtual machines spanning desktop, mobile and web, and provides a master summary report across all test runs.
- BDD test automation support allows teams to write tests in Gherkin syntax, which can then be converted into automated UI functional tests and maintained with native TestComplete features like object recognition and record-and-replay features.
- Free training and support is offered for TestComplete customers, covering initial roll-out and day-to-day support.
- Low barrier to get started for less technical team members
- Ease of automation and maintenance
- Easy creation of new test cases
- Broad compatibility across platforms
- Wide range of languages supported
- Wide range of integrations supported
- OCR text recognition
- Many built-in actions
- Expandability of tests is possible via scripts and script extensions and plugins
- Detailed test report includes screenshots of all actions performed in the application
- Name Mapping may not always be stable and can lead to crashes
- May have issues when operating multiple screens with different resolutions
- A lot of copy and paste may still be needed
- Documentation may have gaps or be unclear in some ways
- More technically experienced users may find the UI clunky compared to an IDE
- Picture comparison feature may be flaky at times
- Complaints about lackluster support for multi-user collaboration
Conclusion
If your team is evaluating whether or not to use TestComplete for your software projects, be sure to consider the specific needs of your team and the other options that are available to you. When evaluating TestComplete, many teams also take a look at similar products like testRigor, Mabl, Tricentis Tosca, and other similar platforms.
