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IBM Rational Test Workbench vs Perfecto 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

IBM Rational Test Workbench
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
18th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
34th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
API Testing Tools (12th)
Perfecto
Ranking in Performance Testing Tools
13th
Ranking in Test Automation Tools
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Functional Testing Tools (11th), Mobile App Testing Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Performance Testing Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Test Workbench is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Perfecto is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1513668 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good reporting and interface, but supports limited types of protocols and requires low-level script editing
It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
"Their team is really great to work with. They're very flexible, and they always show care. They prioritize our work, our company, and our working relationship. I appreciate the ad hoc sessions that they schedule to provide help with troubleshooting, provide the information that we're looking for, or do a demo of a new feature that they have. They're always willing and very quick to get that scheduled for us. I appreciate that a lot."
"We're working in Agile and we need results ASAP. The fact that the lab provides same-day access to new devices is extremely important to us."
"The automated test reporting functionality is the most valuable feature. We use the CI Dashboard. It's very important as it is the main reporting tool for our automated tests."
"In terms of Perfecto's ability to perform cross-platform testing, I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"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."
"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 reporting feature is really tough to find in some of the other products that are competitors. Having your CITB type dashboard, where we can see the test results and see recordings of each test that passed or failed, is probably one of the distinguishing aspects of Perfecto."
"The most valuable feature is automated testing."
 

Cons

"There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation."
"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script."
"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."
"It does well for mobile testing, but when it comes to the web aspect, it is lagging a little bit in terms of execution."
"Previously, we used the cradle. Every time the mobile was blocking it, we would have to ask Perfecto to provide another one. That took a lot of time away from us."
"The flakiness, or the accuracy, of the test execution can be improved. Also, the responsiveness of their cloud lab could be improved as well."
"We have had some issues with performance, which is something that should be improved."
"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."
"I'm hoping they can support on-premises instances. We have been working on a JIRA integration with Perfecto—and I'm extremely impressed that they have that—but at this time they're not supporting onsite JIRA instances, which is what we have."
"There could be some improvements done on the interface. At times, there has been a bit of a struggle when finding things on the interface. A UI revamp would be a better option in future. That UI hasn't changed much in a long time, so I think they could just make it a bit better so that people could find stuff easily and intuitively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Perfecto's price is excellent compared to other products with similar features. It was the lowest of the three we evaluated. We also established a partnership with Perfecto, so they provide discounts when we sell Perfecto projects and licenses to our customers."
"Pricing is an area where Perfecto can do a little better. When we obtain additional licenses, we enter into negotiations with them."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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%."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
Perfecto Mobile, Perfecto Web
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Financial Insurance Management Corp.
Virgin Media, Paychex, Rabobank, R+V, Discover
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational Test Workbench vs. Perfecto and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.