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Perfecto vs SmartBear TestComplete comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Perfecto
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
15th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (16th), Mobile App Testing Tools (4th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
7th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Test Automation Tools category, the mindshare of Perfecto is 2.4%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 6.0%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Automation Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Roland Castelino - PeerSpot reviewer
Its reporting allows us to have a clear view regarding what tests have been executed
The most valuable would be their Live Stream analysis, where I can see the live analysis of all the executions on a single device or multiple devices as well as track them. The live analysis and reporting would be the single most valuable feature. We leverage Perfecto’s reporting and analytics a lot. From the CI Dashboard, it is mainly the status, which is the past, failure count, and time consumption, e.g., how much time did an average test or script take? Along with that, it provides the historical view compared to the previous result, e.g., am I a pass or fail? Also, the stack trace is very important. Whenever a pass occurs, we don't look beyond that. However, whenever a failure occurs, the stack trace information that it gives us is pretty critical for us when figuring out where failures lie. It gives a summary for the pass/fail count, total test count, the historical view, time consumption for each test as well as the total tests, and the stack rate of the failure. Perfecto's analytics are very important since we use them on a daily basis. We run our executions daily. After every execution, we pull information from the Perfecto reporting system and share that with our stakeholders. Having this information accurately reported is pretty important for us, so everybody is aware of the current status of the product. That way, we can evaluate the health of the product or environment against that which has been executed. Therefore, it helps make those real-time decisions and highlights the impact to the business. I found Perfecto to be pretty easy to use while executing against cross-platforms. The main reason is because the same script or test automation where we execute on multiple platforms has minimal changes that I need to do. Also, it is easy for me to set up an execution on one platform, then on another platform, either in parallel or one after the other. Parallel opportunities save me time. Once the execution has been completed across these different configurations, I can always check and compare, e.g., what are the differences and consistencies? We utilize Perfecto’s cloud-based lab to test across devices, browsers, and OSs. I use it occasionally for manual testing. Though, there are other team members who use it more frequently than I do. I use it mainly for executing my automated tests. We have the Perfecto lab, cloud devices, and machines. I can program my test to execute against any of those devices, which gives me more confidence in my product. I can compare and see how my product or application functionally behaves across these different devices and from a UI point of view, which helps me a lot. The device lab is extremely important to our testing operations. We rely on having multiple devices up and running all the time. Whenever we kick off an execution, there are multiple reasons why executions may get triggered: * CodeCommit * A scheduled job. * Might be on-demand by any stakeholder. We need the lab to be available, as we need devices up and running for executions to take place. Also, the devices help since they allow us to have parallel execution, and not just wait for a sequential device to become free and available. Therefore, volume is definitely key. It also gives us an opportunity to compare execution across platforms in that space. It is extremely important to you that the lab provides same-day access to new devices since we analyze that data every single day after execution. Perfecto provides their own framework called Quantum Framework. That is one option. The other option is, if I want to have my own framework, I can have a Java-based Maven project, take a Selenium library, AppiumLibrary, and REST Assured library, and utilize the open-source framework. It is easy for us to connect to Perfecto, no matter what framework we use, as long as it has these core libraries in it. I can design and structure it any way that I want. The execution will happen in Perfecto no matter what since they have support for these tools or libraries. It is pretty neat that way. We are not dependent on using just one particular framework to use Perfecto. While there are still some framework limitations, there is the opportunity to use multiple, different open-source frameworks, then pass the execution to Perfecto. We can use most frameworks, then design and craft it any way that we want, then just pass the execution to Perfecto.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"There are a whole bunch of things that I like about the solution, but I really love the interaction it has with mobile devices, the testing capabilities, as well as reporting capabilities that we get from the application. The reports are very detailed."
"It creates a faster production cycle and is quick to market. Things get deployed earlier because the testing happens on time. We can do a lot of panelization, so a lot of test phases can happen in a panel. People don't have to wait for a device to come to them. They can access multiple devices at the same time and do testing at the same time."
"Perfecto has affected our software quality in a good way. It has allowed us to execute on-demand and on-choice. We also track the number of issues that we find in the product. Every single day, we tag the issues that we found. For example, if something was found by automation, that means it was found by a Perfecto execution. Over time, we realized the real value in tracking those numbers. We can see now that we have clearly been finding issues earlier. It has allowed us to catch our defects earlier, thus improving the quality of our applications."
"The CI dashboard tool is very good, as is the Live Stream monitoring. Whenever I want to monitor execution, I can open multiple tabs in Perfecto and it is easy for me to refer to the CI dashboard and the Live Stream."
"The most valuable feature is automated testing."
"The number one feature, which if we didn't have out-of-the-box would be missed, is the fact that we have video execution. That gives us the ability to view errors or defects in the progression, from beginning to the end of the video."
"One of the good things about Perfecto is the scalability that it provides."
"The automation piece is the most valuable feature. Every time we had a new version of either OS or an application, we found that being able to automate the testing across different devices is very valuable."
"Runs in different remote machines. We have multiple versions of the software being tested."
"The database checkpoints detect problems which are difficult for a human resource to find."
"The ability to run a whole suite of tests automatically (which we did overnight)."
"SmartBear TestComplete performs some self-healing and has a feature called OCR (optical character recognition)."
"It's cross platform automation capabilities specially ranging across web, UNIX (via putty), and other systems."
"Customer service and technical support responsiveness are high. Everyone is very professional."
"The solution helps improve the stability of our product. It also decreases the work of our manual quality assurance engineers."
"Test items, project variables helps in managing automation suite and scheduling execution."
 

Cons

"If we could run an accessibility test in Perfecto against builds, it would help us a lot. Currently, that's a very manual process for us. We haven't found a tool that can do accessibility scans for iOS and doesn't depend on engineering effort. Having a feature related to that would be really awesome for us."
"We've had a couple of issues lately with videos not loading or browsers dying after some execution, although that happens very rarely."
"The monitoring features, in particular network traffic monitoring, could be improved."
"We don't use Perforce's BlazeMeter with Perfecto. From my perspective, it's not really relevant."
"There was a discussion about having the capability to export the test results to a certain tool that we use in our project. If that were added it would be great not having to manually take screenshots, put them in a document, and share them on the different test management tools."
"The flakiness, or the accuracy, of the test execution can be improved. Also, the responsiveness of their cloud lab could be improved as well."
"Going by the dashboard or analytics capabilities that Perfecto or Perforce is looking to offer in its roadmap, it will certainly help if they also cater to executing and enabling decision-making, rather than just focusing on standard testing metrics such as execution, efficiency, and defect rate. These are good metrics, but they don't necessarily enable decision-making for SLTs. Any improvements in the dashboards and reporting tools should focus on metrics or SLAs that can help with decision-making."
"It would be ideal if there was a complete integration with other test management tools and other applications like HPLM, Micro Focus, or Microsoft Azure."
"In scenarios where two of our engineers work on the same task, merging codes is a bit difficult."
"Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover."
"It is very hard to read the test log generated by TestComplete Executor if the log file is very big. TestComplete Executor is a small tool for just running the TestComplete test framework (not for developing)."
"The recording function, when using Python, could be improved, as it does not work well in recording testing."
"This solution could be improved by making it easier to visualize where there is a failure without having to look at it in detail."
"The solution’s customer support should be improved."
"Increased performance with less memory and CPU usage."
"I didn't use it very heavily. One issue that I found was that there wasn't a quick way or a button to move Visual Basic scripts to TestComplete. We have a lot of such scripts in our organization, and it would be very useful to have some option to easily move these scripts. It is currently possible to convert these scripts to TestComplete, but it is not easy. I have to write some code, but everything is not available immediately."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure about its pricing, but from our perspective, licensing has been easy. Anytime I have new users or requests for users that want to get added, it's a very simple process. I just give the architectural owner of the product the name and email address, and they're able to easily add a new user. We don't have any issues in regards to getting licenses, but I don't have any insights into pricing."
"Although Perfecto is a good product for us to use, it is a bit expensive. It takes management a bit of work to find the appropriate funding for us to keep Perfecto. I imagine there could be some way to make it more accessible."
"It's definitely on the higher end of prices for this type of service."
"This is an expensive solution compared to others, by 30% to 40%."
"Perfecto has definitely saved us on the costs and efforts of having to maintain our own virtual test environment. We lost about 20 devices in the past to maintenance and audit. That was a massive loss for us, as a company, because we were giving devices to someone, but don't know whether we would get it back or not. Having those virtual labs, we don't need to worry about these kinds of things. We are easily saving $5,000 to $10,000 a month on device costing."
"Pricing-wise, it is fine. It is not as expensive as what we used to have in the past from HP, IBM, and others. It is decently priced."
"Perfecto is about 30-40% cheaper than Device Anywhere. That was a big reason why we switched. Perfecto also solves some of the issues that we had with Device Anywhere. We have grown by 100% since we started to use Perfecto, and now we have devices roaming. When we look at the competition, we would still stick with Perfecto."
"Pricing is an area where Perfecto can do a little better. When we obtain additional licenses, we enter into negotiations with them."
"It costs a few hundred per year, but I am not sure. It is not at all expensive as compared to other tools."
"It is approximately $6,000 a year."
"TestComplete now have come up with three modules (Web, Desktop & Mobile), so based on the type of product for automation, it is adequate to purchase the required module."
"Our ROI is about $10,000 a year."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP."
"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."
"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
5%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to improve some performance aspects, especially the image comparison feature. Occasion...
 

Also Known As

Perfecto Mobile, Perfecto Web
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Virgin Media, Paychex, Rabobank, R+V, Discover
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about Perfecto vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.