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Appium vs Sauce Labs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Appium
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (7th), Regression Testing Tools (6th)
Sauce Labs
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (10th), Test Automation Tools (15th)
 

Featured Reviews

Abhishek-Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
Has cross-platform flexibility and a record-and-play option
The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky. It can be challenging to set up in Android versus iOS environments. Appium has some limitations in terms of writing code using simulators and online cloud devices. I faced challenges with native based scenarios, battery turn out percentage, battery charging percentage, and memory capacity. The other challenge I faced involved codes changing from device to device. For example, the piece of code that works in iOS version 10.1 won't work in iOS version 6.0. In upcoming releases, if they can reduce some more of the dependencies like SDK, UIAutomator, etc., it would be great. That is, I'd like to see a consolidated package or bundle release that is much more user-friendly.
Savio De Souza - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to have a fully functional CI/CD process while saving time and cutting down on the training required for individual testers
When we were in development, it was a bit of a pain because we have onshore and offshore development. One of our development shops is in India, and we were running tests over there. When some of the users tried to log in, it was slow for them or we didn't have enough licenses. That was during the core development before we even launched. We got around that by purchasing more seats, tinkering with some of the virtualization pieces, and scaling. Now we don't have that issue, because we scaled back the offshore team significantly, so when we run it overnight, there's really no effect. We come in the next morning and review the results. It doesn't affect the overall business or the offshore team. There were also some bottlenecks because of the amount of time testing takes, so we started using more tunnels and running it in parallel. That was the main issue that we faced initially, but now that it's all set up, we're good to go. We were struggling with the volume of tests, and Sauce Labs suggested we run everything in parallel. Sauce Labs isn't lacking any features that we want, and it has several we're not using, like mobile and API testing. They've also introduced a ton more features since we launched, so I don't see anything missing on their end.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Appium has easy interaction with mobile."
"Appium provides a record-and-play option, and the commands are the same as those that Selenium uses. So a person who has some exposure to Selenium will be able to write a piece of code in Appium."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to."
"The solution is stable."
"What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that............. to test the components in the way I want them to be tested."
"The most valuable features of Appium are the in-built functionality, which we can use in our code. For example, move back, move front, navigate one page before, and navigate one page ahead. You can do this by using the in-built functions from Appium."
"It has a wide assortment of platforms."
"Sauce Labs is optimized for automation and integration with the major CI/CD platforms and developer tools. We have an integration with App Center that we're working on. They have a storage API that lets us retrieve APK and IPA, iOS and Android builds off the phone, so that we can continue testing with CI/CD. They integrate with Jenkins, and Jenkins is the main CI/CD."
"The error logging is also very robust. If we run a test through Sauce Labs and there's some sort of issue, a log will appear on the screen. Log messages are usually heinous and horrible... Sauce Labs is incredibly good at saying things like, 'Hey, here is the exact issue. Fix this and you can run the test.' That helps in getting things up and running and executing the way they should."
"As stated earlier we use Sauce Labs for a combination of automated testing and manual testing. Therefore the most useful features are the ability to run the functional automated tests via a Sauce Labs tunnels which allows access to applications in our internal network. The second most useful feature is the manual side."
"Easy to integrate with the other platform for tracking purposes."
"Running tests in parallel."
"One of the most valuable features is that we do not have to have the cross-platform testing vehicles in-house. Sauce Labs gives us the ability to test across platforms and that really helps give us confidence in our products."
"They offer a large number of devices and browser/operating system combinations for real device tests"
 

Cons

"One thing which can be really helpful is that there is some kind of a recorder made available rather than scripting everything."
"We need some bug fixes for nested elements."
"An application developed on the Unity platform, such as a gaming application, objects are moving in that case. Interacting with those elements is still lacking in Appium. Appium doesn't have the internal library to play with the Unity platform. That is a huge lack right now."
"Support-wise, it could be better."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"It breaks down."
"The installation part of Appium is somewhat clumsy, requiring numerous dependencies and configurations."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"The pricing model of Sauce Labs could be more flexible. Sauce Labs has just one price for the type of solution and a set number of devices. Other solutions have a fee for the base solution and an additional cost per device. If you're a smaller organization, you have to consider your needs. Some smaller companies still need to test various devices, so my advice is to start small and scale up as needed. We had initially planned to start big, but that would have been a big waste."
"If I had to speak of an area that could be improved it would probably have to be the speed of interaction with the devices. There is at times a considerable amount of lag while using some of the virtual and at times even physical device farm"
"Start execution time as each time a set of tests start, it will launch a new VM so it takes a bit of time."
"Progress towards reducing application testing time can be made."
"Integration with Github, as well as several other similar tools, could be improved."
"On a rare occasion, I will come into a ticket where a customer will have reached out to me after reaching out to Sauce Labs, saying, "Sauce Labs doesn't understand what I am going through. They are not being very helpful." So, I try to do clean up there. Outside of those extremely rare occasions, I have only had one or two of those support issues."
"Running tests in the SauceCloud can take longer than running in a local environment."
"User account management needs an overhauls, allowing for user groups rather than just a hierarchy structure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The solution is open source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"Appian is open-source, which is not licensed."
"I'm unsure if there's any cost associated with Appium. I got the free package which includes the server GUI application and the inspector application, and it was free to download, and that's all I need to get my work done. I'm not aware of any additional costs associated with the tool."
"The solution is open-source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"Go ahead please. Try it at a smaller scale."
"It could be less like pay-per-use with a lower rate."
"The pricing is definitely on the higher end, and there are other options that are more cost-effective."
"Cost-wise, it's decent. If you have to get the base version out of it, it's the best solution to go with. As compared to other cloud service providers, the pricing of Sauce Labs is decent."
"When you reach the Enterprise licensing tier, base level being with 10 concurrent test sessions, pricing is essentially per-unit-of-concurrency thereafter with a relatively linear increase and not much benefit for "bulk"."
"The pricing is reasonable due to the amount of diversity that they provide. However, I feel they might be more flexible to bargain based on their relationship with our organization."
"The number of concurrent VMs that Sauce Labs provides depends on your purchase license level."
"Trial the product and see if it suits your needs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Appium?
I do recommend Appium. It is an open-source solution and completely free of charge. We use Appium and Appium Studio as our base for any type of mobile automation for testing. It has a great interfa...
What do you like most about Appium?
Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appium?
My experience with Appium from a pricing perspective is favorable due to it being open source, making it a cost-effective option.
What do you like most about Sauce Labs?
It has significantly enhanced our testing accuracy by approximately 50%.
What needs improvement with Sauce Labs?
Sauce Labs can include new technologies like generative AI, which can reduce the human effort in writing test cases. For example, in my current project, we reduced the time it took to complete user...
What is your primary use case for Sauce Labs?
I work as an automation engineer using Selenium WebDriver with Java, and API automation using Rest Assured with Java. I have also worked with Docker integration on AWS. Additionally, I have experie...
 

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Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Salesforce.com, Mozilla, Zendesk, Puppet Labs, Twitter, Bank of America, Eventbrite, Bleacher Report, Okta, Intuit, Travelocity, Sharecare, CapitalOne.
Find out what your peers are saying about Appium vs. Sauce Labs and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.