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reviewer1396401 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior QA Engineer at Indeed.com
Real User
Increases cross-browser testing and reduces cost in purchasing and managing devices
Pros and Cons
  • "Sauce Lab analytics helped us to get detailed knowledge on test cases execution and logs."
  • "They should provide a JIRA integration plugin so that we can easily log issues."

What is our primary use case?

It is usually used for manual and automation testing for different browsers and OS.

Uses:

1. Running image comparisons on different devices

2. Run test cases on mobile and desktop OS and browsers

3. Running test cases on both production and QA

4. Sauce proxy helps us to run tests locally

5. Sauce lab analytics provide better experience to analyze failures and get run timing of test cases

6. Using it for both manual and automation

7. Can help to do compatibility testing of code in different OS

8. Reduce manual overhead

How has it helped my organization?

  • It increases cross-browser testing and reduces cost in purchasing and managing devices
  • Helped team to run test cases locally on OS and browsers
  • Reduce device cost and handling, We lost many devices earlier
  • Ran test cases through Jenkins and capture results in a cool format
  • Easy to debug issues in all supported devices
  • Running test cases on both production and QA
  • Running image comparisons on different devices
  • Sauce l=Lab analytics provide a better experience to analyze failures and get run timing of test cases 

What is most valuable?

1. For automation, it is really helpful as it provides logs and videos of test cases executed

2.  Parallel test execution helped us a lot to reduce test time

3. No maintenance of real devices

4. Sauce lab analytics: It helped us to get detailed knowledge on test cases execution and logs

5. Sauce proxy: Helped to run test cases on an internal network

6. Very easy to enable for automation

7. Vast devices and OS combinations helped us to keep track of world trends and usages

Helped us in testing IE devices is really beneficial

What needs improvement?

Improve easy way to automation testing and generate script automatically while running manual test cases on Sauce. 

1. When running manual test cases, provide us a way to record and playback the same steps

2. Provide JIRA integration plugin so that we can easily log issues.

3. Provide easy way to create scripts automatically for manual steps and use sauce labs UI to execute it again

4. Sauce labs should provide their own email client and easy to send email in that user session

5. One-click setup for sauce proxy

Buyer's Guide
Sauce Labs
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Sauce Labs. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am using it for the last four years.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is really cheap and fast.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1768809 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It reduces the testing time and covers most scenarios
Pros and Cons
  • "Sauce Labs provides us with more combinations to test, so we can keep adding platforms and devices to our network. That's been a very seamless experience. Let's say there's an iOS or a private device we need. Sauce Labs has helped get all those set up when needed."
  • "I may not know what should be improved on the platform, but I think it could offer a greater variety of testing solutions. I know there might be competing solutions that cover more things I'm unaware of, and it could expand a bit more. We've done a lot of automated testing scenarios, and that's all the rage these days, so I think Sauce Labs could look at potential ways to improve and cover other scenarios."

What is our primary use case?

Our company has different divisions, like research and development, manufacturing, and research laboratories. There's also a department called Global Infrastructure Services. In total, we have five or six areas. In some cases, Sauce Labs is only used in a segment of a department. Take, for example, research and development. They might not use it in the laboratories, but they have a digital health section that works on apps or digital solutions for medical diagnostics.

In this example, the primary use case is developing different software applications for medical diagnostics. They use Sauce Labs for testing applications in different operating systems and environments. We do regression testing across various ways someone might use an application. Instead of securing physical machines, they use Sauce Labs to do that. Many of the applications are internal to the company, so we use Sauce Connect to link up to the internal network to test those applications.

We do a combination of parallel and sequential testing in Sauce Labs. Whenever you log in, you see all the tests on the dashboard. You have concurrent and parallel tests running, but some people will also use a sequential one.

How has it helped my organization?

Before we started using Sauce Labs, they needed to use physical machines to test applications. We required a Mac or Windows laptop to try different combinations, so it used to be a cumbersome process. Sauce Labs made testing more straightforward, so we could run more elaborate tests. 

Sauce Labs provides us with more combinations to test, so we can keep adding platforms and devices to our network. That's been a very seamless experience. If there's an iOS or a private device we need, Sauce Labs has helped get all those set up when needed.

As platform administrators, we get requests from different departments. Project teams using Sauce Labs come to us and say, "We have these three or four devices, but we might need another one that is private to us with this combination of operating systems and browsers." We get those spun up in Sauce Labs and have customer support. 

The ability to run tests in parallel has cut down our test execution time for every application we use. The more we can reduce testing time, the easier it is to deploy an application, so running parallel tests is obviously an excellent way to do that.

What is most valuable?

It offers a decent range of browser-OS combination simulators and mobile device emulators. Our company tries out lots of different applications and solutions. It's not just for product development but for any application we use internally. For example, we use JIRA for project management, but we tried many solutions before deciding on that particular one. 

We've been using Sauce Labs for a long time, even though there were other candidates we could have used. It's a robust platform that has met our needs, especially with Sauce Connect. We have internal applications that aren't available externally, and Sauce Connect makes that possible.

What needs improvement?

Nothing comes to mind right now, but this might be because I'm an administrator and not an end-user who is familiar with the application's use case. If we have teams asking for something that isn't already there, we communicate that back to Sauce Labs. That hasn't happened so far in the time that I've been in this role. 

I may not know what should be improved on the platform, but I think it could offer a greater variety of testing solutions. I know there might be competing solutions that cover more aspects that I'm unaware of, and it could expand a bit more. We've done a lot of automated testing scenarios, and that's all the rage these days, so I think Sauce Labs could look at potential ways to improve and cover other scenarios.

For how long have I used the solution?

I work for the IT team of a pharmaceutical company, but different departments use Sauce Labs. I belong to the team that manages all applications the company uses, so we provide Sauce Labs for other users but don't use the product ourselves. I support it from the administrative side, but I've only been in this role for a few months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't seen any downtime in the few months that I've been in this role, and we haven't heard any complaints about latency, but we've always used a cloud-based application. We wouldn't know the difference. We could compare if we had an on-premise version, but we've always used the cloud version, and it's the fast version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have purchased a consistent amount of licenses over the years, and we are looking to grow with a focus on automated testing this year.

How are customer service and support?

Sauce Labs' support has been awesome. We have monthly support calls to catch up on any requests that we might have. When there is a new update or release, somebody from Sauce Labs comes to talk to us. It's not just us, but all users. It's like an open house. We have been planning that for some time now, but COVID has put a damper on those plans. When we meet monthly, we share any findings on our site, and they come up with best practices to share with us as well. We are satisfied with Sauce Labs' customer service.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

A supply management team deals with pricing and licensing. We look at the utilization of licenses every month and see if we need to purchase new ones then shoot them an email saying we need more. We don't get into the inner workings of licensing and procurement.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Sauce Labs eight out of 10. There are more and more different testing scenarios for various machines and environments we use every day. Sauce Labs provides a robust platform to test combinations of what a user might encounter when accessing any application.

Sauce Labs reduces the testing time and covers all the possible scenarios that could come up, so we don't have to worry about any scenario that we might not have missed testing manually. It's a great platform to cover all your bases.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Sauce Labs
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Sauce Labs. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head of Automation R&D at Applause
Real User
Enables us to support multiple versions of browsers, devices and OS combinations, but OTT support would make it more complete
Pros and Cons
  • "They update for the latest browsers and mobile phones and support a lot of combinations. They have 1,000-plus desktop combinations and browser versions, which is really great. We need that at Applause. The all-in-one testing suite aspect of it is really important because most of our clients prefer to go to one place."
  • "Latency, due to Sauce Labs being a cloud-based solution, has been a concern. We work in different continents and countries, but last time I checked, Sauce Labs was only offering two data centers, one in the EU and another in the US. If you're not in either of those two places, you would have latency and issues running your test cases."

What is our primary use case?

At our company, Applause, we offer software testing as a service and we always get a lot of interesting, uncommon or challenging use cases from our clients. We sometimes get ones that require specific devices or browsers to work. For example, we have clients who want to mix testing on desktop browsers and apps or test on multiple apps to achieve some kind of scenario; perhaps you are at a restaurant, and you are ordering something on your personal phone/tablet, which shows up on the restaurant's tablet or desktop browser. 

Our clients are not only looking for executing the test cases manually, but their target is to automate all of them and be able to integrate that into their CI/CD pipeline and get faster feedback about the stability of the changes that the development team produces on a daily basis.

Sauce Labs covers all of our automation needs and also allow us to do manual testing in case we are verifying bugs or testing something else.

How has it helped my organization?

My main focus is on automation testing and Sauce Labs is an integral part in our success as a company as they offer 1000+ different combinations of desktop browsers, real devices & OS versions. This allows us to pretty much cover all the automation test scenarios we need. We've also integrated them in our internal SDKs and are using their platform on a daily-basis to test the quality of our clients' apps and websites.

The number of the real devices they offer is also very important to our business, because most clients want to support multiple devices & OS versions. We have clients who want us to run automation tests on Android 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and sometimes even on Beta versions. Sauce Labs offers all of that, enabling us to support all of these versions, which is really nice. The same goes for their desktop browsers, although most of our clients usually use either the latest version or the one before that. I haven't seen a client who wants to use and old browser version like Firefox 50, but it's a great feature that Sauce Labs offers, in case it is needed for any reason.

In terms of delivering software faster by getting feedback with every commit, it depends on the client and the system under test (SUT); some of our clients are testing manually and that would take them days, others have a CI/CD pipeline and run some smoke tests after each commit. Part of our job at Applause is to enhance the overall testing process of our clients & automate it as much as possible. Instead of taking days to do a full regression, it might take a couple of hours to get the same results. 

Because we're working with Sauce Labs, and we're doing automation for our clients, they get a pretty fast cycle of feedback that allows them to make the right decisions at the right time.

Without Sauce Labs, it would be really hard to achieve the software quality standards or the automation coverage that our clients need.

What is most valuable?

Towards the beginning of this year, we had to constantly switch between Sauce Labs and their legacy solution for real device testing, TestObject. This was causing a lot of issues or confusion for our engineers & clients. Now, with the new unified platform, we get everything we need in one single place and it is so intuitive and straightforward. You can easily do manual testing, view running automation scripts or switch between data centers from one single place.

Overall, we're very happy with the combinations of browsers and devices they offer, especially because they always have multiple instances of the same device. If you want an iPhone 12 for your tests, you can get five of them for example and run your test scripts in parallel, which reduces the total execution time.

Sauce Labs also allows specifying the browser version as "latest", which means that they automatically pick the latest version they support and run the tests against it. Previously, we had to manually change the browser version in our scripts whenever a new one becomes available and it was wasting a lot of time (as it needed to be done for a lot of projects).

Their platform also offers some cool features if you're working with apps. You can just pass them a URL to an app build that is stored somewhere on your servers or on AWS, and they will install that on the phone/tablet and run tests against it on the spot. This has allowed for an easier integration with our SDK, as opposed to competitors who don't offer such feature.

What needs improvement?

The market is changing and we're seeing a lot of shift towards testing on OTT devices, like Apple TV, Fire TV Sticks, Chromecast and Roku. This is really an emerging market and has the potential to grow exponentially. We've been getting a lot of clients asking us to test on OTT devices, either manually or via automation. We have been able to automate testing on OTT devices, but it is done with local devices hosted on our premises, so we can't scale that fast or cover all of the huge demand we are seeing. We're looking for the ability to do this in the cloud, so if Sauce Labs offered such a feature, that would be really great. Working on OTT devices usually includes testing on desktop browsers or phones/tablets and having all of those supported in one platform would be ideal.

While Sauce Labs pretty much covers everything we need, another exception is HarmonyOS. I know it's a new thing and it's not supported by a lot of providers, but it is something that clients have started asking for. That is something we'd be really interested in seeing, for both manual and automated testing.

Also, latency, due to Sauce Labs being a cloud-based solution, has been a concern. We work in different continents and countries, but last time I checked, Sauce Labs was only offering two data centers, one in the EU and another in the US. If you're not in either of those two places, you would have latency and issues running your test scripts. However, I'm working with clients in different countries and we've seen some latency issues, depending on the country, although it's not huge. In comparison to other providers who have data centers in different places, there is some noticeable latency.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Sauce Labs for over five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sauce Labs is pretty stable in comparison to other providers. We still get some issues every now and then or random failures, especially when there is a new OS or browser version, but it's not a big deal and we can easily contact Sauce Labs' support to get things fixed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

One of Sauce Labs' competitors does not force you to select the data center you want to run against. They just figure out which data center is closest to where you are executing your test scripts from. They offer a single, unified endpoint or URLs when it comes to automation and handle everything else internally. When we're writing automation scripts, we don't need to specify, "I want to run on the European data center," or "I want to run on the American data center." We can just say, "I want to run a test case," and depending on the location you come from, the platform is smart enough to direct it to the nearest data center to reduce latency.

This may not be directly related to scalability, but this kind of capability would make it easier for us to build our SDKs faster and focus on other features, which in return would allow us to scale faster as a company. The learning curve for newcomers would also be easier, because they wouldn't need to worry about figuring out which data center to run against.

While I love the fact that we can specify the data center ourselves, because it gives us more freedom, I would love to see more data centers in different places around the world, to reduce latency, and the selection of the data center implicitly done by the platform, so we don't need to worry about it.

How are customer service and support?

We open support tickets, and they're pretty responsive, they get back to us on time. They're really good about fixing things and making their platform more stable.

I've run into a couple of situations where tickets have been left for weeks without feedback, but that has not happened often. When it does happen, I can go to our customer success manager and say, "We need some attention to these tickets." She can take care of it and that makes the support pretty good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What other advice do I have?

Pay attention to selecting the correct data center, otherwise you would run into some latency-related issues.

Although we are not using visual regression testing, that is something that would be really interesting, because a lot of our media clients want to test visual validations on their apps. If Sauce Labs is offering that out-of-the-box, it would be really interesting for us.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Quality Assurance Engineer at Optum
Real User
Insights provide a great overall state of the automation suite and can identify trends relatively quickly
Pros and Cons
  • "The insights section provides a great overall state of the automation suite and can identify trends relatively quickly. If we see a dip in our passing rate over time, we can look at what changed when the test started failing to find the root cause rather than doing a quick fix to find that the test fails a short time later."
  • "The one issue I have is the 14-day trial that a new user gets for free. I understand the concept of the trial period; however, I think this could be revamped to a free 30-minute run time every few months or after a significant update once the trial period has ended."

What is our primary use case?

My company uses Sauce Labs to run all smoke and regression tests for our application.

We primarily run our tests on Chrome 83, but we occasionally run on other versions (81 or 84) to check to compatibility. Our smoke suite runs on a nightly build, and regression on a bi-weekly basis.

For building out new automation features, we have to have a passing Sauce Lab run before creating a pull request. Doing this ensures that our new automation features will run on other environments and not just locally.

How has it helped my organization?

The insights section provides a great overall state of the automation suite and can identify trends relatively quickly. If we see a dip in our passing rate over time, we can look at what changed when the test started failing to find the root cause rather than doing a quick fix to find that the test fails a short time later.

The visual data is helpful for all levels within the organization from the QE engineer level up to the director level.

The ability to change the browser version has also ensured that our application stays compatible with previous and updated browser versions.

What is most valuable?

One major feature that I like about Sauce Labs is the recording feature. I love the option to watch a video playback and command and view log when I'm trying to figure out why my test was passing locally but may fail on Sauce Labs. It's helped to make sure of my automation.

Another feature I find valuable is the ability to choose browser versions. This feature allows us to test on our minimum browser version but also check/verify that our application is working on the most recent browser version as well.

The insights tab is also very valuable, as I’ve discussed early; it provides a great deal of data and determines trends in our automation sooner.

What needs improvement?

From a company use standpoint - I have no complaints. The one issue I have is the 14-day trial that a new user gets for free. I understand the concept of the trial period; however, I think this could be revamped to a free 30-minute run time every few months or after a significant update once the trial period has ended. Personally speaking - I like to maintain my automation framework and would like to occasionally test that it continues to run on Sauce Labs after releases without stealing from Sauce Labs.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Sauce Labs consistently for a year now since I've started with my company.  After being introduced to Sauce Labs, I've incorporated it into my framework that I maintain.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

A previous solution I had used was running a VM from a NAS server to run our automation scripts.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Be sure to plan out your solution before starting the free trial; 14-days goes by rather quickly.

What other advice do I have?

Sauce Labs was already integrated into our framework and SDLC process when I started with the company.  After using it for a year now, I would highly recommend this to anyone.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Software Test Automation Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Easy scaling to multiple web platforms. They still have platform-specific issues, especially on Mobile platforms.

What is our primary use case?

We use SauceLabs for Mobile, Browser and Backend testing.

Our QA requirement is to test our apps against all major browser platforms including Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Apart  of visual and functional testing of the application components, we also collect network traffic produced by the apps for further analysis. With latest update, accessing har files got supported natively by the SauceLabs.

For mobile testing we leverage Sauce Connect tunnels as we need to connect the application under test to the corporate network and collect the produced traffic as well.

How has it helped my organization?

1. Achieved better cross platform test coverage for both Browser and Mobile testing

2. Frontend and Backend testing are now more connected

3. With Sauce Analytics we now use resources in more optimal way and too extensive cloud resources usage is no longer a concern

4. We no longer need to support a huge farm of mobile devices - SauceLabs Real Device Cloud works pretty well for us.

5. In some cases, like peak real device usage, SauceLabs Real Device Cloud doesn't work as well due to the delay required to release devices after testing sessions end

What is most valuable?

1. Easy scaling to multiple web platforms -> SauceLabs was the cheapest option for us

2. Support of tunneling traffic from the cloud to the enterprise network -> that is just essential for our testing

3. Video recording of tests execution process -> shortened root cause analysis time for use by 30%

4. User groups management and cloud resources consumption control -> now each group of users under our organization has dedicated pool of devices/emulators and concurrent resources access is no longer an issue

What needs improvement?

1. They still have very slow support and ask many excessive questions before starting to fix the issue.

When we submit tickets in their reporting system, we expect them to start tracking down the problem as soon as possible. Instead, it looks like they ask standard questions just to delay work to a few days. E.g. 
1st day: "Could you confirm you use the latest version" - "Yes, we do"

2nd day: "Ok. Can you then try to run that with extra flag Y and grab the log for us" - "Yes, please, take the log"

<2 days of silence>

5th day: ... - "Guys, is there any progress on that?"

and so on...

Sometimes questions are really unrelated and take time like "Have you read the Getting Started guide?"

2. They still have platform-specific issues, especially on Mobile platforms. They wouldn't affect trivial tests though.

E.g. they have issues related to SauceConnect traffic routing specific to iOS 9 and Android 4.

This affect tests that want to sniff the traffic only though. Please, let me know if you want more technical details.

3. Sometimes they change configuration options (e.g. rename...

E.g. recently they changed desired capability for iPhone Simulator in a way like "iPhone 6 simulator" > "iPhone 6"

That affected multiple tests suddenly. They haven't made any notification about that though.

For how long have I used the solution?

I believe, for more than 7 years already

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1775700 - PeerSpot reviewer
LMTS, Software Engineering at Salesforce
Real User
The ability to test the visual aspects of our apps' UI has been crucial
Pros and Cons
  • "Sauce Labs helps us identify the root causes of bugs. The solution offers a lot of flexibility by providing the latest iOS and Android emulator versions, and even the Appium updates when it comes out in the market."
  • "Sauce Labs' dashboard could be improved by adding more filters and allowing more customization options. There was one instance where the dashboard on the Sauce Labs UI didn't meet our requirements, so we had to use the Sauce Labs API to create some apps and dashboards on our own. The API endpoints could be a little more robust and customizable."

What is our primary use case?

I'm on a team called the "Quadrant Three Mobile" team. Our focus is mobile testing and mobile browser testing. Sauce Labs provides iOS simulators and Android emulators that we use in our tests. It's running on our private cloud, and we have a Sauce tunnel set up to communicate between our environment and the Sauce Labs environment.

We don't often use the Sauce Labs UI to track the tests we need to do. We have a UI on our end to do that. However, we log in to the web interface to view the dashboards to see the test strength and what was triggered or to search for specific tests exact testing. The Sauce Labs dashboard has links to videos of the actual test runs, which helps us deal with debugging issues and test failures. 

Quality control engineers are the main users of Sauce Labs at the company, but developers also use it for making the CRM code base. They run tests on Sauce Labs mid-development to ensure their piece of work is going well.

How has it helped my organization?

Sauce Labs helps us identify the root causes of bugs. The solution offers a lot of flexibility by providing the latest iOS and Android emulator versions, and even the Appium updates when it comes out in the market. 

Those have been helpful because the apps we test on Sauce Labs are used by customers across the globe, and we want to be sure we're testing on the latest iOS and Android versions as well as older versions that our customers still use heavily. Sauce Labs has done a decent job of giving us all the versions we need. 

What is most valuable?

Sauce Labs' dashboards are a good supplement for our dashboards and UI. The web interface is useful when we want to triage a specific test run or overall across different jobs. It's also handy when we want to look at what results we get when we run a test across a whole account.

Sauce Labs' ability to test the visual aspects of our apps' UI has been crucial. At the end of the day, mobile testing is not only about functionality but also making sure your UI looks good in different languages and works well. Sauce Labs supports screenshots whenever test failures happen, giving us a good idea if something is broken on the visual side.

What needs improvement?

Sauce Labs' logging features could be improved. For example, when we run a mobile test on iOS, we want a way to capture the logs generated. It has some drawbacks there. Sauce Labs isn't able to give us everything we test for. 

Sauce Labs' dashboard could be improved by adding more filters and allowing more customization options. There was one instance where the dashboard on the Sauce Labs UI didn't meet our requirements, so we had to use the Sauce Labs API to create some apps and dashboards on our own. The API endpoints could be a little more robust and customizable. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Sauce Labs for four to five years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sauce Labs' reliability is one of the most important aspects of the platform. They have a status page to notify if there is any downtime. We rely on Sauce Labs because we have a continuous development process here, and we are testing code that comes out through Sauce Labs' emulators. 

However, we've had occasional performance issues. For example, there are times when devices need to be restarted or the UI takes longer to load and things like that. The virtual emulators and simulators have been good, and their hardware and infrastructure have been standing up well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think Sauce Labs has proven that their platform is pretty scalable because they give us a broad selection of versions available for iOS and Android. They also support their emulators with good virtual machines, so Sauce Labs can scale their infrastructure to their customers' needs quite well.

I don't know exactly how many users are currently working with Sauce Labs in my company, but it's in the hundreds. We'll certainly expand usage in the future because we're planning to offer new kinds of mobile apps, and when those come out, we'll need to test them using Sauce Labs. As the number of products we offer increases, the usage will too. We use it for nearly all of our functional testing.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Sauce Labs' support at about seven out of 10. We put in certain requests with Sauce Labs, and sometimes it takes a while to get solutions implemented, depending on the priority.

How was the initial setup?

My team didn't deploy Sauce Labs in our environment. A different team handled that. We did the initial installation back in 2016, and I don't recall it being very complex. 

They had some binaries and decent instructions on how to set up Sauce Labs' tunnels. They also give instructions on how to capture logs of those tunnels to see traffic between your environment and the Sauce environment. All of that is pretty well documented, and support teams have been quite helpful. Whenever we needed something out of the box, we've been in touch with them for it. 

What was our ROI?

I can't really quantify a return on investment, but testing on Sauce Labs has helped us catch issues and fix problems much sooner than we would have without it. That has saved us money.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Sauce Labs eight out of 10. I recommend it for mobile testing. Sauce Labs is a reliable vendor, and you can trust their network. They have a good platform, with broad support for various mobile OS versions. Their availability is also high in the region, so we seldom see outages. The dashboards on their website for tracking your mobile testing strength are helpful. Overall, it's a good product for anyone wanting to do mobile testing. 

The main aspect I've learned from working with Sauce Labs is that it's not easy to maintain a range of devices or virtual environments and provide it for mobile customers. We have tried to do that at my company, and it's challenging. I definitely like what Sauce Labs is doing in terms of providing that reliable network for us. We're also learning more about our own product through testing on Sauce Labs. The sooner you test, the quicker you identify issues in your own application. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1400664 - PeerSpot reviewer
QA Analyst II at Regal Entertainment Group
Real User
Enables us to configure multiple test scenarios and pinpoint which internet browser we want to test
Pros and Cons
    • "Another feature that could still be improved on is more error clarity. Sometimes when running automated scripts the test will fail on the device side instead of the script and errors only show a 500 try again message instead of a detailed script that could of a been a timeout error from the code."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for this solution is for automation testing on mobile and web on our testing environment so we can implement continuous integration and continuous delivery into the workplace. With the automation practice being used we are able to deliver more and possibly deliver daily after each build is created in theory. With the automation, we can now focus time testing the higher traffic areas or higher risk areas that could possibly crash or cause a bad experience for the end-user of either the web or mobile application. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    Sauce Labs has improved the organization with the ability to test more internet browser configuration, more mobile testing devices that are not a flagship phone, and more operating systems. With the internet browser testing, we are able to config multiple test scenarios and pinpoint which internet browser we want to test on and what operating system we want to run the test on. So with Sauce Labs, we are able to cover multiple Chrome, Firefox, and safari variations to support and test for all users. 

    What is most valuable?

    The feature that I have found most valuable is their device bank. With this, I am able to test more niche phones that is not a flagship and have the ability to support the end-user. This has been useful because when older devices from Android and iOS are running older OS and they experience a crash, it has been hard in the past to replicate their issues without purchasing that device and hoping it matches the phone specs. With the device bank, it seems like all a major of phones from android 5.0 are covered up to the current. 

    What needs improvement?

    A service that could be improved is some of their Wiki documents are either outdated or point to broken URLs; however when contacting the customer service they are able to respond in a quick manner with either an updated document or with the steps to fix the issue. 

    Another feature that could still be improved on is more error clarity. Sometimes when running automated scripts the test will fail on the device side instead of the script and errors only show a 500 try again message instead of a detailed script that could of a been a timeout error from the code. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    The company has been using Sauce Labs for 8 months.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    No we were not using a different solution. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I think a longer trial period would be beneficial. Instead of 14 days look at 28 days due to in part the company that is on the trial period could be busy or possibly busy during the trial period. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at other options but found that Sauce Labs was the best option to support both Web and Mobile.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1396422 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior QA Automation Engineer at Bleacher Report
    Real User
    Analytics have drastically improved over the years and you can dive into your test results (pass/fail) to get a better understanding of how things are working
    Pros and Cons
    • "I have found the live test section with Sauce Labs to be extremely valuable. When you can't quite figure out why a test is failing, you can go to the live test results section within their tool and launch your test (specifying a given OS/browser, or device) manually and step through the test to see the issue more clearly, usually opening up the developer's tool console and watching the network calls and console (within Chrome) to usually find the underlying issue."
    • "Overall, I think Sauce Labs provides us with a valuable tool and resource. As far as what could be improved, I would say the overall test execution time. Some of the calls take a bit longer than I expect, for example in web browser tests; while the execution time isn't obnoxious, it could be improved so that overall tests/test suites finish faster."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) QA Pipeline interacts with Sauce Labs when it goes to run the necessary automated tests. Our automated tests exist for normal web browser tests (we specify to run on the latest Chrome version, on Mac OS) as well as mobile tests where are mobile tests run on various Android and iOS devices to verify that our apps are working properly on multiple systems. We use a 30 VM (Virtual Machine) farm from Sauce Labs, which gives us enough VM's to get through all our tests in a very reasonable amount of time.

    How has it helped my organization?

    I use it to maintain my own VM (Virtual Machine) farm of 25 VMs. The admin time I had to spend on maintenance and upkeep was a few hours per week, coupled with the fact that the up-time on the VMs was probably somewhere around 75% due to issues coming up in off-hours when I wasn't available to due maintenance/fixes/repairs. When I finally moved over to Sauce Labs, all this burden of doing the management was uplifted off my shoulders, and the up-time is nearly 100% for Sauce Labs VMs. On top of that, we can specify from an abundance of device types, OS's, browser versions, etc. when running our tests. Furthermore, the analytics side of things within Sauce Labs has drastically improved over the years and you can dive into your test results (pass/fail) to get a better understanding of how things are working over a period of time. Overall, Sauce Labs has provided us with a VM farm that is virtually always up and running and has taken the burden off of us/myself of maintaining the VM farm.

    What is most valuable?

    I have found the live test section with Sauce Labs to be extremely valuable. When you can't quite figure out why a test is failing, you can go to the live test results section within their tool and launch your test (specifying a given OS/browser, or device) manually and step through the test to see the issue more clearly, usually opening up the developer's tool console and watching the network calls and console (within Chrome) to usually find the underlying issue.

    I also frequently use the insights section within the tool, to analyze trends of the pass/fail rate of our tests, so I can see what suites of ours are more failure-prone than others, etc. The tool allows you to filter up to the last 30 days' worth of data, along with many other filter options (OS type, tag, build, etc.) so you can really produce insights into your tests.

    What needs improvement?

    Overall, I think Sauce Labs provides us with a valuable tool and resource. As far as what could be improved, I would say the overall test execution time. Some of the calls take a bit longer than I expect, for example in web browser tests; while the execution time isn't obnoxious, it could be improved so that overall tests/test suites finish faster.

    Within the insights section of the Sauce Labs tool, I think it would be nice if you could go back farther than 30 days worth of data. I like all the custom filters available, but being able to go back say 90 days (or more) would show more statistics on our data/test results.

    In the next release, I'd like to see continual new additions of OS's. This area is usually pretty up-to-date, please keep at it!

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Five plus years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Very good, up-time is near 100%.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Very good, you can add Vs if necessary.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We've only usually contacted customer service (our account manager) to add VMs, it's been seamless and pleasant.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Manually maintained my own VM farm. We switched to Sauce Labs as the cost/time to maintain my own VM farm was too high.

    How was the initial setup?

    Straightforward and easy, with good instructions in their knowledge base.

    What about the implementation team?

    In-house.

    What was our ROI?

    I'd say it definitely provides a good ROI, vs maintaining your own VM farm.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The cost is worth it. Start with a VM farm that you think suits your needs, and then add/subtract VM's if necessary.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Amazon Web Services (AWS)
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Sauce Labs Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: January 2025
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Sauce Labs Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.