Ranorex Studio Reviews

• The ease of use of the object repository.
• How quickly you can get up and running using a powerful programming language.
• Powerful IDE and Visual Studio integration.
• Pricing, particularly the runner license.

Six years ago, the only real alternative was QTP. Having previously used other tools, including Rational Robot, Winrunner, TestComplete and others over the years, we wished to move away from the typical VB scripted approach. Selenium was in its infancy and still a basic tool. QTP, whilst still good, was struggling to keep up with new technologies, despite still being a market leader. For us QTP’s antiquated IDE was no longer adequate and VBscript did not offer the power of newer programming languages.

Ranorex at the time was the only solution able to easily handle the new Ajax web implementations of the day. Our company had just moved to ExtJS 2 and QTP did not provide support for that technology. HP support was not able to rectify the issue whereas Ranorex worked out of the box.

Ranorex support was great also. Support responses were always quick and they were able to work with us to find solutions, weather they were solutions out of the box, or construct solutions for us if they weren't yet available.

For people starting out in automation or even people who have been doing it for years, Ranorex provides an automation solution that can get you up and running with limited fuss. Whilst we no longer use the solution in the way they would intend i.e. we’ve abstracted all of their functions within wrapper classes and simply use Ranorex for interacting with the application, I still believe it is a great tool that caters for a wide range of technologies for testers that are new to automation.

I've used it for six years.

I’ve always been impressed with how easy it is to install and maintain. It’s a quick installation and you’re on your way. These days they have inbuilt test management which previously was not available. As such we wrote our own test management tools and framework so I can’t comment on that side of the application as I’ve never used it.

I’ve always found their support second to none. Responses to my questions were answered promptly and their technical staff are exactly that, extremely technical which is refreshing given the generally basic support previously experienced from other vendors.

Over the last 18 years I’ve used many products ranging from Rational Robot, Winrunner, Test Complete and QTP to now using Ranorex and lately Selenium. I’ve also “played around” with other tools such as WATIR, RFT, SilkTest and lately cucumber etc but I ultimately chose Ranorex because of its price point, hence ROI. It was a fraction of the cost of other commercial tools, yet had the features we needed and was quick to get up and running.

It had a “modern” IDE that was user friendly, I could develop in Visual Studio and it was in a powerful language that most of my team was familiar with.

Our company has recently made a decision to use Selenium also. This was purely based on its cost however. Whilst Selenium these days has become a powerful automation alternative, it is still really limited to people with previous automation experience and with a strong programming background if you wish to achieve similar ROI compared with the commercial tools. For us this is now the case, hence the move.

Selenium however lacks the inbuilt IDE and tools that the commercial solutions have and is still essentially a group of libraries. It does have a strong user base however, hence lots of examples are available in Java. If you don’t have a programming background it can be time consuming to come to grips with however. Selenium really requires a framework to utilise it efficiently, so if you don’t already have one you’ll either have to learn and use an existing framework or build one which will be time consuming. You also need to hook into other tools such as TestNG or similar to get consistent reporting approach (these days UI testing is but a small part of a bigger picture; Unit, Web Service, UI testing etc). As such the tool which started off sounding good because it was free is now incurring significant cost as a result of the lack of inbuilt tools to get you up and running quickly, and the skills learning curve.

I think skilled users loose sight of how much they’ve learned over the years, so whilst Selenium is great and easy to pick up if you’ve already got a strong development background, it’s not a good choice for teams that lack those skills. The commercial tools allow users to walk before they can run so to speak.

Ranorex still has the best pricing point for bang for buck I believe with the runner license availability being a big selling point. When we shifted from QTP to Ranorex six years ago we did so because we were able to purchase 39 Ranorex licenses with the budget we had for the maintenance of our four QTP licenses, and the tool worked on our technologies whereas QTP didn’t anymore. It was a simple decision to move.

The initial setup was straightforward. Just install it and you’re off and running. The software installation was also quick compared to other products. Admittedly we had an inbuilt framework that we’d built available to us so we just wired Ranorex into that framework.

We implemented using an internal team. One thing I would say is that if you have the choice I would always get your automation completed by a professional team rather than manual testers looking to become automated testers. Whilst the costs may seem higher initially I’ve yet to see a manual team introduce robust, maintainable automation anywhere near the timescales that a professional team can achieve. Automation is an art.

ROI isn’t just limited to pricing/licensing. Whilst it is an initial selling point, resource availability, skill requirements etc is what I see as the fundamental cost savers toward your ROI.

Maintenance is a cost killer in automation, so if you haven’t implemented a modular, data driven framework (which requires a skilled team) then I still believe the commercial tools will provide you with a better ROI. As I’ve said above however, if you do have a choice, hire a skilled team as then you will be able to get away with using free tools such as Selenium. The resource will have experience with those products, hence will also be able to implement a maintenance efficient framework in a cost effective manner.

Skilled resources! I can’t push that point enough. You need at least one highly skilled resource to be responsible for the architecture of your framework as long term maintenance will be your largest cost, followed by actual implementation time.

A skilled resource can then help to transfer their knowledge across to less technical resources. Ultimately a good architect will aim to abstract the technical as much as possible to enable non-technical team members to also assist with the automation process. People ofter refer to this as a “script less” approach. Whilst this is nothing new, there is still a lot of contention around this topic, particularly from automation “guru’s” as generally speaking most framework still required a lot of coding, and “scriptless” frameworks simply don’t provide the flexibility of their coded counterparts.

I do believe however that it will become the way of the future and is achievable by continuous abstraction of functionality within your frameworks to eventually get to a point where hardly any code is required to “build your script”. Essentially only data is required to run your automated scenario. Not just data driven in a sense of providing your input/expected result data, but data driven at the object/automation artefact level. Also the more that you can automate the process of producing that data, the better. It is similar to the modularisation of code, only you’re not modularising data.

This is something we’ve achieved for our company. I refer to it as “Model Based Automation” as we use a model hierarchy for managing all of our application objects. A data dictionary as such. This model can be built manually, or automatically scraped from an application using rules. This has the hidden advantage of also enabling you to automatically track object interaction coverage across your application under test via automation. This has enabled us to reduce our code footprint from over 250,000+ lines of code to just 6,000, whilst automating most of what would usually be a manual process of producing code.

Once again however as you can see we’re now referring to frameworks, and not the tools themselves. Obviously building the frameworks themselves takes time and skill. The real skill is making the frameworks generic enough that they are no longer application dependant.

• Very reliable (multiplatform and technologies) element recognition
• Reliable recording
• Speedy and helpful support
• Great community forum.

Ranorex helps us to test our apps more effectively on a daily basis.

The current version of Ranorex Studio IDE is based on an old version of SharpDevelop IDE (3.2), but this is going to change soon (planned update to SharpDevelop 4.x). So aside some minor feature requests I made in the past (many of them have already been implemented), I don’t have any urgent requests. The good thing about Ranorex is that it’s fully .Net compatible, so a lot of things could be self-implemented via custom C#/ VB.NET code.

I’ve been using it personally for over three years, but in Descartes we have been using it for about a year or so.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Ranorex support is speedy, reliable and very friendly.

Setup is easy, anyone with an elementary knowledge of programming should be able to work with it right away. Otherwise, there is comprehensive user guide, some nice video tutorials, and an excellent community forum.

We implemented it in-house as the setup is easy and straightforward. It just requires some time to create and implement a good test automation workflow, however, this is irrelevant to the test automation product itself.

ROI is hard to estimate and I’m not the one who estimated it.

The Ranorex pricing and licensing seems to be adequate, considering the feature set, level of support and frequency of updates. It’s not cheap, but definitely not the most expensive test automation tool.

Before we picked Ranorex, we did a direct comparison with Squish and TestComplete.

I would suggest you try to implement a use case with multiple concurrent test automation products, to find the right one for your needs. It’s good to compare various aspects of different products - element recognition consistency, recording reliability, reusability of test modules, comprehensiveness of support and documentation, and the quality of the community forum etc.

We use the solution for screen-based navigation.

The solution has its advantages, as it supports virtual machines. Thus, we can integrate it with the DevOps processes and Jenkins server.

Presently, the solution only supports Windows. It would be good if it also supports Ubuntu, as we have tools running on both systems.

We have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have seven to eight users in our organization.

The solution's technical support team could be responsive.

The solution's initial setup process is easy and less time-consuming. We have to follow the steps mentioned on its website for installation. It is easy to maintain as well.

The solution is easy to learn. I advise others to understand their business requirements before making the purchase decision. They can also opt for tools like Katalon.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten because of the complexity of C-Sharp language. They should include Python language instead.

• It supports two languages C#.Net and VB.NET
• We use Ranorex Spy, Ranorex Repository, User Functions, Modules, Run Configurations, Data Driven Testing and Cross Browser, Cross Platform Testing
• It has very good integration with Visual Studio, Jenkins and Testlink
• Cross platform testing
• Reporting capability and error handling capabilities are one of the best
• GDI Capability allows to identify un-recognizable objects

I implemented this tool for several of my customers and I can see the ROI rightaway. The tool is very easy to use and test automation can be started rightaway and improvements can be done later on. Perhaps this is the only tool where I would reply on Record and Playback because it just does excellent job same as manually adding automated test steps.

We automated hundreds of regression tests using this tool and they run every weekend and every time the test fails, an email is sent out. Earlier we used to run one big round of regression test every quarter but now we do it every week. Huge savings!!

• Built in web services testing functionality is required
• Built-in file comparison would be very handy
• Support for Mac and Linux would be handy, it supports only Windows

We had no issues with deployment.

I personally think that, perhaps, it is one of the most stable automated tools available in the market. You can rely on your tests and it won’t let you down.

We've had no issues scaling it.

I would recommend reading through the user guide, the guide is very comprehensive and provides a lot of examples of best practises Buy Runtime Engine licenses for execution rather than full Ranorex Studio license. Make use of Cross Browser Testing as far as possible (Automate once and run on multiple browsers). Use variables and data fields that have consistent names (like $UserName and $Password). 

Use data-driven testing, which allows to run the same test over and over with different data while getting consistent and verifiable results. Use the data to feed and to validate the system. Create small and distinct tests and you can always combine them in the test case. By keeping the tests small and simple you decrease the overhead of maintenance. Don’t automate tests which are run only once, try to automated repetitive tests.

We use Ranorex for automating the testing of the GUI components in our applications.

Code Conversion is one of the great features because sometimes, the automation tool doesn't have the capability of maneuvering around two specific evaluations. Using the code conversion option means that you can easily write the code the way you want.

The object detection functionality needs to be improved.  We have found that when you are selecting objects by moving the mouse, and then the position of these objects change in the newer versions of the application, the test tool fails to correctly identify them.

We have been using Ranorex for about three years.

Stability is fine and we have had no problem with it.

We haven't had any problems in terms of scalability. We have more than five people using it, and their roles range from developer to management.

We have been in contact with technical support and they are responsive. It is fair to say that they have resolved our issues quickly.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The licensing fees depend on the number of users.

When we started using this tool a few years ago, we had finished an evaluation where Ranorex was the winner in terms of capability.

We will be working on new products and we are in the process of looking at more test automation tools. Right now, we are investigating Telerik Test Studio to see if it has more capability than Ranorex.

My advice for anybody who is considering Ranorex is that it is a powerful tool, it is far-reaching, and it works as advertised. In my opinion, it is one of the best tools available in the market.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The ability to create test scripts with the flexibility to run them as a whole or as individual test steps within the script. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent creating test scripts.

With completed test automation suites we have greatly reduced the amount of time spent manually regression testing after each software release.

The only real complaints I would have would be a bit of quirkiness in the UI at times, but no application is perfect.

I have used it for about five years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Ranorex customer service has been prompt the couple of times I have contacted them. There was one instance where I had an issue and contacted them for a solution they were unable to provide it, and I ended up finding a work around on my own. The Ranorex user blog is al helpful platform.

The initial set-up is very basic, download the executable and run it just like most other programs.

We implemented the product in-house. The only tricky part is if using their floating license option, the configurations need to be set up across the network. My current organization is small so we experienced no issues. Implementing on a much larger scale could be a bit tricky.

The ROI would be the man hours saved by implementing the Automation suite.

The pricing for this tool is acceptable for the amount of features it provides and as for licensing we are small company and only have two licenses. I believe they offer some savings based on the number of licenses purchased.

The ROI would be the man hours saved by implementing the automation suite. The pricing for this tool is acceptable for the amount of features it provides and as for licensing we are small company and only have two licenses. I believe they offer some savings based on the number of licenses purchased.

Based on my experience, this would be my tool of choice for test automation. There are many out there but I have yet to find one that offers all of the features mentioned above in one package.

Through Ranorex, we are automating our test cases done for our internal CRM solution. We are using the keyword-driven approach available in Ranorex, and we get benefits from the essential support for Dynamics CRM (all versions). We are using also the runtime feature that runs the test suite independently on the server.

With this product we are continuously getting rid of manual regression tests that had to happen each deployment manually by key users. It brings more accuracy in regression tests, more time for involved people for their daily tasks, and more confidence to the application. In the future we plan to incorporate automatic execution in the continuous integration process.

It needs a better connection to TFS.

We have been using it for six months in my department.

The application is more stable by comparison to other products on the market that we have considered for test automation.

Communication with the Ranorex support was very effective and straightforward in early phase of incorporating Ranorex into our internal infrastructure. Ranorex is providing us with best practice sessions and code reviews. We appreciate their very quick purchasing cycle.

In the beginning we had small problem with configuring Ranorex License manager in our infrastructure due to our firewall and proxy settings, but with the help of Ranorex support we quickly found the fix to solve the issue.

We implemented it with an in-house team with the help of a vendor team, but I expect that for companies with less strict network security policies, it would be less of a problem.

With the incorporation of Ranorex and automation testing in general we are saving a lot of time for our internal people. ROI is calculated at about one year approximately.

We have purchased the premium license with an enterprise package, which includes special care from Ranorex such as code review, high priority in issue solving etc.

We had an evaluation period to choose most suitable product from ones available on the market and during that we have tried many of them. We have discovered that Ranorex has native support for all technologies and products used within our company, such as SAP, all Microsoft Dynamics products, SharePoint, Kentico, web based portals and others including support for mobile testing. Also, it beats the others in stability, because other products crashed very often once using recording module.

If you are looking for an automation tool that is easy to implement, easy to understand, and works with most of technologies on the market, Ranorex is the appropriate solution for you. So far I can only recommend this product.

The ability to use code (C#) to control the testing operations as well as the minimal training to get team members up to speed and productive have been valuable features for us.

As a company, we have tried several approaches to institute automated front-end testing with limited short term success. Currently, we are in full production executing thousands of test cases, multiple time per sprints across various platforms. By doing this we have freed up the team to -

1. Do more automation; and
2. Conduct in-depth testing not done previously.

The end results are a significant drop in customer-found defects.

I would like to see Ranorex come up with a load balancing tool for test execution. For example, if I set up 10 VMs as UI clients I would love to be able to provide this group to the test suite so it would send test executions to the next available client. The result would be that I finish testing as soon as possible. 

Also, I would like to see the popup watchers be launched conditionally, and not each as a thread running in the background. For example, if there is a hang in the execution you launch a watcher and check for condition A. If not condition A then launch second watcher and look for condition B.

We have been using Ranorex as our primary UI automation tool for over three years.

We did in fact encounter problems when deploying the tool and to some degree we are still handling some of these problems. The first problem we came across was not unique to Ranorex but was the fact that our front end was applet based and none of the tools explored could interact with the applets in any consistent way. 

We had tried out several tools including the high-end HP suite (with help from one of their architects) with very unstable results. When it came to Ranorex, at least it was stable and we were able to consistently run X,Y coordinate scenarios. Base on that we instrumented the applet code and were able to access it via the User Code modules.

We have in fact had several failed attempts at automation with our product and have been evaluating tools all along. The reason we ultimately settled on Ranorex was a combination of its current state and our being able to overcome problems as the occurred.

Setup is simple and straightforward. The integration with SVN was simple, and the license server was very simple.

By our calculations we are now getting a return of 50% time saved in team efforts, making the team 50% more productive.

It’s always a good idea to negotiate price with vendors to get the best possible deals balance the numbers of licenses with the group/bulk discounts.

Given the makeup and technical level of our entire team and the product we are developing. This was and continues to be a good fit.

Make sure it fits with your team goals and products. Consider the profiles of folk you will need to hire to implement and maintain the testing. There is a stigma with being in QA as opposed to being a developer, so you may implement a tool that is hard to hire for. Take for example Selenium, lots of QA want it on their resume because they can demand more compensation, the profile needed is that of a developer.

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