SmartBear TestComplete Reviews

The primary use is to run regression tests on a call accounting system as a web application, which is running on a Windows operating system. The tests simulate user actions using UI and database verification.

The solution has saved a lot of human resources by running full regression tests prior to each release. In addition, during the years, many major bugs have been detected by the tool, and it has saved us the big expense of fixing problems after a release. Our confidence with the tool increased as releases were performed successfully, without any rejections from the field.

The database checkpoints detect problems which are difficult for a human resource to find. In addition, verification of UI items in all screens is also important task that consumes too
much manual resources.

Name Mapping feature should be clearer. Whenever I use it, I do not really know what will work and what will not work.

Eleven years.

Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover.

No issues.

Customer service and technical support responsiveness are high. Everyone is very professional.

We did not have a previous solution.

The initial setup was straight forward. No issues at all during the setup stage.

The implementation was in-house.

Our ROI is about $10,000 a year.

The license price for a physical machine is cheap, and for virtual machine, it is very expensive.

We did not evaluate other solutions.

• Tests can be execute and run separately.

• Runs in different remote machines. We have multiple versions of the software being tested.

• Calls different operations through batch files.

• Has the option for combining data and is keyword driven. It helps people with less knowledge in programming to work with it.

We already have the UI smoke test and have integrated to our build system, which runs each day for multiple version of the product. This saves us a lot of time.

* Product is not stable enough and it crashes often

The application under test is a complex scientific application developed in C++ & C# and use different technologies. So when I try to do Name mapping, it sometimes hangs and have to restart Test complete

* Checking from TestComplete to TFS has issues.

I mostly try to checkin the changes with Visual studio as TestComplete hangs while you try to check in with many changes directly to TFS from Testcomplete.

* Possibility to run a part of keyword tests through TestExecute

Consider you have a keyword test with 10 individual tests. By using test execute, you can only run the main one, not the individual ones.
So I like to have the possibility of running from the 3rd test or just running the 5th one.The option is not present in TestExecute (you can do it in Test complete).

It would help if it were more stable as it sometimes hangs and crashes.

We have different version of the product and it framework/project was easily scalable and used by other projects.

We had multiple technical training sessions which were helpful and almost all the answers are in the community.

When I started at this company, they were using TestComplete.

Getting used to product did take some time.

The price is less, compared to other products, such as QTP.

We had a choice with Coded UI as we developed it using C#. However, TestComplete is the preferred choice one over coded UI, as it needed to grow more as a test tool.

Get training and decide on a framework that suited for your application. It always depends on what you want to do with the tool.

I like the cross browser compatibility. It saves a lot of time re-writing scripts to accommodate different browsers.

We are consultants. So we simply provide an automated solution to a client, then move on. We don’t use the product in our day to day work.

The way objects are added and used when utilizing descriptive programming could be improved. It is a little unwieldy, compared to UFT.

In UFT, using descriptive programming for a web page you can use.

Browser(description).WebList(description).Select anything.

Regardless of how many panes, frames, panels etc are in the hierarchy before the Weblist object.

But in Smartbear you have to store every frame, panel etc.

So that if you didn’t use the ‘Alias’ functionality you would have an object description miles long.

But even having to use the Alias, you still have to add each and every frame, panel, etc. whereas in UFT you can just use page.object and it will find the object on the page (as long as you’re using unique descriptions!!) without worrying about frames, panes, etc.

We have used this solution for about two years.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

I didn’t require any technical support.

I routinely use SmartBear, UFT, and SilkTest. I fit the application used to whatever my client requires.

The initial setup was very straightforward. Even the mobile testing side was easy to setup

My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it. It makes it an excellent cost saving alternative.

I use several tools.

As with all tools, verify that it will do what you need for a reasonable price.

We mainly use the solution for test automation. 

The programming capability, as well as the record and play, make the solution very easy to use.

The way that it's licensed is also quite attractive. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward and simple. 

It's scalable. 

It has a very good run time.

The solution is mainly stable. 

The integration tools could be better. It would be useful if we could use it with other test management tools.

We'd like to see the solution add a few more features to the offering.

I've used the solution for more than five years. 

By and large, it is a stable product. There may be some bug fixes needed here or there. however, for the most part, it's fine. 

The solution is scalable. 

We aren't a very big company. Maybe 20 people are using the solution. Most of them are test automation engineers.

Technical support is average. It's not bad, nor is it outstanding. 

Neutral

I did not previously use a different solution. 

The company does, however, also use IBM tools. 

It is an easy solution to set up. The deployment takes minutes. It's very fast to set up.

We only need one person to maintain the solution. 

Our own team handled the implementation. We didn't need any outside assistance from integrators or consultants. 

The solution is around $1500. Some are perpetual licenses, and some get a yearly report card. 

Our team occasionally does test other options. 

We had some sort of partnership with the product.

I'm not sure which version we're using. The version we're using is likely two years old. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

TestComplete is simple, it's a very easy-to-use tool. It offers credibility and value for the money. A basic license is roughly $4,000 and you can add flexible components on top of it. 

If you want desktop testing, you can add-on a desktop license. If you want web testing, you're going to want to add-on a web license — there's a lot of flexibility, you just need to pay for what you use. There are no irritating subscription models.

People are able to quickly use the platform and with a variety of scripting languages, including Python and JavaScript — all the modern scripting languages are supported. It doesn't just rely on VB script like UFT.

It's very flexible and robust in that way. I have seen many of our clients quickly adopting the tool with all the scripting languages. 

Recently, they've been building a lot of futuristic features, for example, AI Self-healing is one of the interesting features where they try to improve and cut down on maintenance by automatically correcting the arbiter. That's a really cool feature for keeping your object repositories up to date, and it can considerably bring down or control your maintenance costs to some extent, at least as far as the object repository goes.

They also have some intelligent OCR features. They have a mini device cloud, for example, which allows you to run a testing tool and recently started supporting X spot. That actually goes well with selenium. You can reuse some of the scripts with other frameworks. They also acquired CucumberStudio a few years back. They have combined HipTest and Cucumber into one capability — CucumberStudio —, which is a great integration to TestComplete, that really becomes very seamless.

They're working on many features. Of course, the roadmap is not news to me, but yes, of course, they are working on different features.

I have been using this solution for many years.

We have not faced any concerns with respect to the stability of the tool; at least we have not seen any major issues with the tool where it malfunctions or anything, never.

It is a scalable solution. The beauty of TestComplete is that it's not tied to one scripting language. All the different scripting languages come with different abilities. You have different types of metrics and controls available with different scripting languages. That way we can drive our own framework. You can create many custom frameworks using TestComplete that will suit your organization. That's what we have been doing with many companies — it's an all-in-one solution.

The technical support is excellent. We don't deal with them directly, but the feedback that I have received from different clients is that it's really excellent. They are always attentive —  That's a feeling I've always got from different clients.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. There's a good license server map for all those things — it's a fairly straightforward solution.

The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000.

We do a lot of consulting and training services for SmartBear. We try to educate the users in terms of the new features available in TestComplete so that they can do some smart automation. It's not just for automating some scenarios, you can optimize a lot of your effort.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

I built it for a demonstration for my team and it's currently dealing with procurement as far as cost, et cetera. The demonstration deals with how the tool is easy to use for desktop and web applications and, of course, web applications on mobile devices as well. No mobile device applications yet. I was able to spend that also using the TestComplete cloud. Instead of building my own grid, I used the test Selenium cloud, which you could use selecting different platforms and different web browsers per platform and you could span them across multiple devices and that was extremely helpful. Building is the hardest part about the frameworks because there's really no right way to do it.

In TestComplete, I saw a conformed package of a tool that kept everybody in consistency. The team was able to regenerate further tests without having to manipulate more code because the record feature is great. Because we use JavaScript, we convert to JavaScript and then we just expand it from there and that was wonderful. The easiest way to start the test case or test scenario for design purposes is to put it on record, click it and I start messing with the automation. I was very impressed because I didn't have to step out of bounds of TestComplete and that's the kind of tool I've been looking for since I've been automating.

The most useful feature is the name mapping. It allows me to not have to worry about the object's name; I just use my alias.

This affected the way my client's organization functions in several ways. Number one is the consistency of the versioning. Everyone's using the same tools, same kind of code, same kind of coding methods. In case somebody's sick or out, another team member can pick up where they left off and keep going. 

It's also great because that record feature is not for the mindless. The recording plate is not only there to help you start writing the test, it helps you as a tester or an engineer understand the business mindset of how they built the application. You have to go in yourself and click around. Then, it puts everything in code and then helps you understand. We were testing sites like pharmacies, hotels, insurance providers, and other commercial companies like PetSmart. That's where I was using it and that's where the conformity got a lot better.

I was going to say load and performance but I really didn't get a chance to get into the load and performance part of TestComplete.

I can sense there's still a little bit more room for improvement in terms of making the whole testing process easier. Because it was desktop first, it kind of focused on COTS-based testing and API's because everyone's using it at the moment.

To bring it up to a 10, I would be looking for the addition of some key functional API testing. What I mean by key is like the video streaming or a consistent flow of data being used and then how much can it handle and how much API testing can it do because that's where the load and performance comes in. The API testing is where I would see a lot more improvement.

I've been using this solution on and off for about four years. About a year in total.

I have to say that scalability is pretty sufficient for now. I'm the test architect for the company and I have eight employees under me and we are all using the solution.

I would rate my experience with tech support as 10 out of 10. I had two emails and two calls with tech support. Within five minutes, my problem was solved. They were immediately aware of what I was having difficulty with and then showed me the right way to implement the solution.

We've been using Selenium with Java and it's too hard to manage the framework because everyone's changing it because they're running it locally and then they'll put it off the grid, but locally, they're building on the machine. I incorporated a Docker and I containerized the test framework so that now, new employees can go and just install the container but then there's still that engineering mindset. They want to go out and play, so it's just hard to manage. With TestComplete it's all encapsulated in one.

The initial setup was very straightforward. I didn't experience any bugs, glitches, or crashing. I was running 16 tests at one time using half of using my grid and half using the cloud and everything was running fine. I had to test and see if TestComplete could actually go on a Selenium grid and it did.

We're still kind of in the evaluation phase. The new requirements are still in development. So we're using this time to hang up our testing environment. 

We're looking for more COTS-based tools or tool so we don't have to do as much management. We want a tool that does the management as versions up and then we just lock it down.

My advice to others is: If you're looking for speed, configuration consistency, and accuracy of tests with fantastic results, go get TestComplete. If you're starting with it, you'll see how much more you can expand on it.

Desktop and web application support. TestComplete fits almost perfectly with a large amount of stacks, such as Delphi, C#, Java and web applications. It's an amazing feature for companies that want to automate UI tests on each application built in-house.

Before using TestComplete on our projects, we used to use a lot of tools to automate our applications, such as Sikuli or Java Robot to automate desktop apps, and Selenium WebDriver for web apps. After starting to use TestComplete, we were able to centralize all scripts in only one tool and technology.

TestComplete gives support to do requests to a SOAP web service but has no support to do HTTP requests on Restful services. In a microservice world, this is a big flaw. Another thing is that the cross-browser support has a lot of different traits between browsers. It should be improved.

Five years.

Sometimes the app crashes during test execution based on the amount of code that is running. It's recommended that you modularize scripts, but that is not a justification for not being more stable.

TestComplete has a test executor app that can be used in a distributed test execution environment. The problem is that this is a paid product. Thus, it was pretty expensive to scale this architecture.

Eight out of 10.

I used to use HPE QTP but TestComplete has the same features, low price, and support for handling a lot of stacks. In addition, I don't need to use hundreds of plugins.

To start working with TestComplete, we only needed to install (next, next, finish flow) and then start using it. There are some configurations to do to help increase efficiency, but I do not consider that more than a nice-to-have.

Buy modules on demand. If you have a four-person team and they will each automate tests only 25% of the time, it's better to buy a floating licence and share the tool during the work day. If they will each use it all the time, buy licences for all of them.

No, I did a PoC and discovered the pros and cons.

Do a PoC and try to understand if TestComplete fits your context and requirements. Use the script-driven approach instead keyword-driven, because the former is more efficient.

• SoapUI/ReadyAPI integration
• Selenium integration
• We run all of tests using TestExecute, this is just the executer for all TestComplete tests – command line version so can be integrated with any CI tools
• We used to these tests seamlessly on Jenkins (TestComplete has a plugin for Jenkins)
• The best part is TestComplete gives choice of selecting any of the six languages it supports
• List of checkpoints available in TestComplete is one of the strongest available in the market
• We also make heavy use of version control integration and JIRA integration
• Data driven testing feature of this tool is one of the best

We did a POC for number of tools in past and eventually decided on TestComplete. We started with one tester and one test which we used to trigger manually. As the product matured, it added cross browser, mobile testing functionality, integration with Selenium/ SoapUI and Jenkins plugins, so we started using it more and more. Currently, the automated test team size is 20 and we run hundreds of tests automatically at the end of build process without any human intervention. For us, the automated test farm of 20 virtual machines for execution, 20 TestComplete licenses and 20 automated testers are doing the job of 100 manual testers. The ROI has improved significantly and all the regression tests for our product are automated. We have plans of using TestComplete in the test driven development approach where developers can make use of our tests as part of their unit testing and I am sure we are going to achieve a lot more from this tool in coming years.

• Error handling features in the tool are a little limited
• The tool currently is Windows only, would like to see it being implemented for Mac and Linux
• Once the tests are created in one languages, you can’t change it use other languages

There have been no issues with the deployment.

The tool sometimes seems a little unstable and crashes sometimes on Windows 10.

There are no issues with the scalability.

Average

Good

No. We did a POC on multiple tools and TestComplete was our first selection

StraightForward

In-house

QTP, TOSCA, RATIONAL, RANOREX

The tool has great capability but also has great potential to demoralize if you implement it in incorrectly. Automated tests complement manual testing and doesn’t remove manual tests completely so I would suggest keep your manual tests, they will come handy as reference when the automated test fails or needs an update. I would suggest following before you start implementing the tool in you automated test environment

• Choose the language to be used and stick to it. TestComplete supports six languages (VBScript, JScript, Python, DelphiScript, C++Script, C#Script)
• Choose the naming convention for objects in the name-map and keyword tests so that you can make use of these tests in several projects
• Always try to reuse the tests with parameterised values wherever possible rather than duplicating the tests
• Version control the tests so that you can maintain multiple versions for multiple branches of your tests
• Define and document a standard process for automation and communication
• Execute the tests frequently so that you can get the best out of the tests and defects are identified as early as possible