Cross-Platform Automated Testing Tool

I will recommend UFT Pro (LeanFT) as the tool of choice.

LeanFT is a cross-platform tool that was built specifically for the continues integration and continues testing world. It can be installed on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines (there is also a Docker Image that can be utilized). The tool supports automating a range of applications, Web, mobile, desktop applications, SAP applications and even Terminal Emulators. The tool can test mobile applications of all kinds: native, hybrid an mobile web applications.
The tool provides the following capabilities:

· A rich SDK in C#, Java and JavaScript to easily create cross-browser, robust tests which don’t break

· IDE integration for Visual Studio, Eclipse and InteliJ which helps to utilized the user’s environment while helping to start testing very fast

· Object Identification Center – a tool to inspect and create robust identifications for the objects in the AUT

· Application Model – a tool inside the IDE which enables modeling of the application in order to reuse it later on in the tests themselves

· Reporting – an HTML report with all the information to better understand the test and the root cause for errors in case happened

Choose something that's flexible enough to just meet your current needs but doesn't limit you. You've already had lots of response about Selenium and that might do the job for you today. In the future, though, you might want to have some additional libraries such as object recognition, reporting, and analytics to help right-size the test set and minimize upkeep and maintenance costs.

The same goes for your test lab and execution environment - choose something that can grow with you, not a platform that caps out at your needs today. Again, analytics tools like suggested environments and geographic data centre locations nearby your development sites.

For a shameless plug, you might try using Silk WebDriver (for free) to add record/replay to your Selenium scripts and simplify your ramp-up pretty significantly. For an execution environment try StormRunner Functional, which gives you not just a dynamic test lab but many more capabilities for optimizing your test sets and minimize the costs and time associated with them. SRF has a free trial to get yourself started, too.

Hi,

Try Testsigma, Its a unified automation testing tool to test your application across different platforms like Windows, Mac, and Linux with different browsers Firefox, Chrome, IE.

Best part is you don't need programming knowledge to do this. You can write automated tests using simple English. It is as simple as writing manual tests. It runs on cloud. You dont need to install any tool and you dont need to have your own test devices. You can choose to execute your tests on our test machines available on cloud.

You can start your #SmartTestAutomation journey from here testsigma.com/

It's not only the platform you are testing on but also the development platform in which your AUT is made. Angular? Java? CSharp?. Net? Does it involve api testing? Database checking? Petformance testing? Perhaps several tools are needed.
Open source is cheap, but support can be an issue. So experience an willingness to 'make your hands dirty' is a factor.
And also take maintainability in consideration. Selenium is well known, but it takes a lot of coding if you are starting from scratch.
The best advice is to experiment, don't decide based on hearsay stories.

Hi
We use Power Farmer platform (made by Makeitright company) to run and manage cross platform tests. Solution manages entire execution and development process of scripts across different technologies and platforms.
As engine to run scripts itself we use Selenium Webdriver for web applications, Appium for Android/iOS, SoapUI for API tests, and in case of native apps tests we use commercial tools like i.e. Unified Functional Testing
Using Power Farmer assures a common methodolgy and reusability of the code in cross platform automation scenarios. It adds a significant advantages over bare selenium or other point automation tools, but keeps their advantages.

Selenium is open source and has a lot of resources easily available on the web.

Selenium with Appium will support both IOS and Android
Selenium Webdriver will support all different browsers for a web application (Chrome, FF, Edge, IE..)
SAUCELABS for cloud testing

Hi Everyone,

I just want to say thank you for all the helpful input!

The plan is to create the native UI using a single technology and the bottom line is, whatever we end up using to do the automation testing should be able to handle running tests on Windows, MAC, Linux and mobile - simulating like how a user would be using the application. For sure there will be testing at the API level to validate integrations but that will be handled separately.

I realized that my initial inquiry may have been too broad/simplistic and some of the feedback made me think that there are indeed other factors that should be considered in the selection process (i.e. framework). Having said that, the recommended applications did provide me with a good place to start researching a solution ... and I hear you on the experimentation, we're in the middle of evaluating tools right now :)

Thanks again!!!

Hi, Anne de Mata,

still no additional details and no answers to the questions form the community.
My impression is , you got a lot of qualified answers and questions.

But it doesn't seem to be worth a reaction since 3 days, isn't it? Or is it already enough and you lost interest?
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Hi,
I would recommend Ranorex. It's working great with cross-browsers. The automation is independent from the environment.
GUI Object recognition is very strong.
User codes can be written in C# or VBNet.
You can also link Selenium tests to your Ranorex testsuite.
The community forum and the support are very helpful.

Hi

Katalon Studio is a comprehensive powerful free tool for Web, Mobile and Api automation testing.

Katalon Studio supports executing automation test in following environments:

Chrome
Firefox
IE
Safari
Remote
Android
iOS
Custom
with all the operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux.

The toughest job in automation is to design a framework satisfying specific requirements of an application. Nowadays Selenium with page-object model, data-driven framework, and TestNG is opted as an automation solution by many of us. There is nothing wrong to implement the framework yourself, but time and cost are the most important factors to be considered. We cannot take 3 weeks to design a framework when the testing phase ends in 5 weeks.

This is why Katalon Studio empowers teams to collaborate and produce high-quality applications using its well-structured framework and built-in features.

www.katalon.com/

Thanks & Regards
Abhishek Pedaballi

Hi Sir/Madam,

The application that can be installed on windows , MAC, Linux , ios and Android, It may be app or web application or desktop application or client server application.

Also application need to be tested in various ways 1) Functional 2) Non Functional testing.

Functional:-

in case of IOS , Android it may be just we need to access it
1) Through Web Browser
2) App

In case , if we are accessing it through web browser , my strong recommendations are

1) Selenium with Chrome capabilities ( having emulator to mimic the different types of devices )
2) Protractor ( See for reference :- github.com/angular/protractor/issues/697 )

In case of App , we can use

1) Selenium with Appium that will support both IOS and Android
2) Protractor with Appium that will support both IOS and Android( See for reference :- github.com/angular/protractor/issues/697 )

In case of Windows, MAX and Linux , if it is web application to be accessed through web browsers

1) Selenium with various browsers capabilities can be tested
2) Protractor with various browsers capabilities can be tested

In case of it is desktop application or client server application on different platforms, we can use

1) Sikuli and AutoIT for desktop applications
2) Testcomplete and UFT for client server applications

Non Functional:-

1) Jmeter is best open source tool ( www.slideshare.net/BlazeMeter/mobile-app-performance-testing-with-open-source-tools, www.blazemeter.com/blog/load-testing-mobile-apps-made-easy)

Usability Testing :- 1) Manual testing -- with proper judgement.

so I conclude that the various tools and techniques are dependent on the
1) AUT ( application under test )
2) Type of testing
3) Budget available
4) Type of reporting mechanism required
5) Different stages of testing.

Regards,
V Rama Prasada Reddy

A lot depends on the applications under test.
Also the maturiy of you're user/testers plays an important role in this choise and even if you need integrations with other platforms.

With the limited information I would do a small PoC with the following tool(set/suites):
- ICTestautomation by TrendIC
- Ranorex
- Tosca
- SikuliX with a framework (for advanced OCR)
- MF LeanFT or UFT with ALM/BPT.

At least do a proper intake (performed by a independent Testtool consultant!).

If your application is browser-based, then this may help:

The Selenium webdriver is a popular automation test tool.

You can use many languages like Java or Python

To control it(see SeleniumHQ.org).

The same Java/Python programs are applicable across Windows/Linux.

You can control the web driver without using Java or Python by using Robot Framework (robotframework.org) which has its own Selenium library via simple test scripts.

The Robot Framework scripts can be reused across Windows/Linux platforms.

Not familiar with Appium but I understand that it can be used for mobile application testing.

Hi,
as long you have a browser based app you can have Selenium , Robotium, Appium.
When I understand you right you have a cross-compiled App installed on all of these platforms, isn't it? I suppose that you will have different source code projects for mobile OS-s and desktop OS-s, isn't it? Or do you have a mainly shared code over all (?!) and if you find a bug on one platform, it will exist on the others too?
Can you tell us more? What did you do / implement until now for testing? Which real problems did you face already in practice?

Well after a lot of evaluation, we achieved similar testing with the use of "Eggplant" from www.testplant.com/ for all mobile platforms, and Sikulix for desktop platforms. They are triggered from the test plans which are hosted on an "Extensive Testing" server. This server brings a lot of tools and agents for testing (REST, SOAP, Python, shell...). Sikulix comes as part of the ExtensiveTesting Server, even though ist an open source project on ist own.
The Extensive Testing server project is open source, all in Python, and we were able to extend and adapt it as desired, e.g. for continuous integration.
Hope that helps.

Here are some links:
www.testplant.com/
www.extensivetesting.org/

Selenium Web Driver is Best Recommended as it is Open Source tool and best compatibility with all OS.
for IOS and Android Mobile Appium is best

There are so many variables which would determine the chosen testing platform. For instance, if it is IOS and open source application code then Sauce Labs and Selenium may be the right choice. However, for my purposes on my current project, I have a huge number of choices with Azure, VSTS and Visual Studio. These give me continuous integration testing, load testing, unit testing. Within these types of testing, I have many testing frameworks I can use.

So, I hate to answer questions with questions, but if you could give me a bit more information about the type of application, the chosen hosting platform, MDA choice, development platforms and possibly the chosen code repository system, I may be able to give your colleague a somewhat more definitive answer.

Let me know if I can help further.

I’d recommend open source, something like Selenium. It seems to be less constrained by OS and with a Cloud solution like SauceLabs to access the various OS, hardware costs to the company are further reduced.

Selenium with plugins will work

With the limited details, it would be difficult to recommend a specific tool. Are you able to provide details relating to:

* Technology stack, including DB and interfaces;
* Target Mobile Device Set;
* Browser(s) and minimum versions;
* Minimum versions of the OS;
* Estimated number of Releases/Test Cycles;
* Estimated number of Test Cases
* Lead time available to create the automated test cases;
* Do any manual test cases exist?
* How many resources will need to be 'licenced' concurrently?
* What are the technical skills available within the dev/test team?
* Will the tests be heavily reused or is this a once-off project?
* Are performance baselines important?
* Is multi-lingual support important?
* What tools are currently available to the colleague; and
* Is there a budget to work within?

This sound like the ‘golden egg’. Unfortunately I don’t know the anwser. We are looking for something similar for iOS, UWP and Webapplications. I am thinking of Tosca. Good and complete tool, but no experience with as it is to big for us.

If u searching for paid tool then testsigma and browserstack is very good. For open source selenium and katalon is best.

Selenium webdriver for web application and katalon for mobile application best.

I would suggest selenium web driver for automating the web pages and monkeytalk or renorex for andriod and iOS test automation. This is based on my own experience with working on these tools.

Ranorex is worth looking into - cross-platform is one of it's main strengths.

I would recommend EggPlant/TestPlant.
Because it is one of the few automation products that works the same way as a human. i.e. it recognises shapes and areas on the screen where input is required (bitmaps) it does not try and understand the objects on the screen and so is completely unconcerned by the language the app has been developed in OR the operating system being used( works with Citrix) Works with touch screen too!!!

If you are looking for Open Source tools, Then I would recommed Selenium Web driver or Katalon Studio. Both are free and easy to use and implement.

I would recommend Katalon Studio, the new kid on the block. It has an IDE for Windows and Mac OS X, based on Eclipse. Simple installation, freeware,
a tool for both functional testers and test automation experts. And a command line version to run tests on Linux as well. It is based on Selenium and supports Web, Mobile and API tests.

Squish (squish.froglogic.com/) will be able to cover all these requirements being a true cross-platform GUI test automation tool.

Hi,
we use RANOREX which is able to handle UI application on Mobiles and web-browsers.

There are plenty of good suggestions so far from the contributors above. However, given our usage, my recommendation would be to investigate TOSCA from Tricentis - www.tricentis.com/software-testing-tools/

My Suggestion is to try Testplant.

An easy tool nowadays is Katalon. This allows you to run your tests on remote (browserstack, cross-browser testing) so you can run in parallel without
wasting time.

The tool supports both browser and mobile as well. Really fast and less knowledge GAP.

For automation testing , u may use Eclipse software with Selenium web driver. The language is Java.

With my real time experience in automation testing i suggest Appium Tool for mobile application automation. Selenium for the Web functional testing automation. These two are open source tool.If you want to use commercial tool there are so many like eggplant, UFT,cucumber etc...

CA App Test provides the ability to create tests irrespective of the platform. Then again it depends on what kind of app it is (REST, SOAP, etc) but we are good there. One caveat: We’ve given the 1-year notice on mobile app testing and starting August 2018 there will be no mobile testing support with CA App Test.

Web based application: Appium and Selenium based automation framework(you can develop on your own or using QMetry or Zephyr kind of tools), TOSCA
Installable Application: Tricentis TOSCA (Supports both web and installed applications. Please refer
documentation.tricentis.com/en/1020/content/systemanforderungen/systemrequirements.htm),
Ranorex is also good

We have just moved to Katalon and Sauce labs utilizing Selenium for our scripting but honestly I think my team is just setting up everything in Katalon and they aren’t using Selenium yet. Katalon is super easy to use and it’s free. I currently use Saucelabs for manual browser testing.
We just did a thorough analysis of three automation tools and Katalon was our choice.
Let me know if you need further details.

Currently, we are using a Test Automation tool by name HP UFT.

I would use HP UFT. HP UFT is platform independent, meaning it can run on various OS. Are there any back-end services? (middleware)

www.guru99.com/mobile-testing-with-qtp-hp-uft.html

BDD framework developed using Xamarin C#. Will help To test the applications on all platforms

At the UI level, Appium is open source and based on Selenium's web driver. For service API, it depends on the code base (native React, or other shared service code) the simplest solution would be to test the service using unit testing framework: fast, and simple, but it if you have an agile team (university students?) then these tests are don't provide team visibility. Other options include fitnesse wiki to provide team visibility, or a BDD framework such as Nested Objects are good options.

Use ZAPTEST Free edition to automate any UI application on Mobile (iOS, Andr, BB, WinMo), Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix. There is an easy to learn Tutorial and user Forum.

You can automate for Agile or Waterfall, auto-generate test documentation, and run same test execution in parallel on ALL test environments.

Download here: www.zaptest.com/zaptest-free-edition

I would need to know more information:
- what type of testing needs to be done?
- how many concurrent users do they anticipate will be participating?
- do they have parameters to hit?

Glad to assist - That’s it for now.

Try Zaptest. They say it will run on various platforms and browers

As "Toyer Mamoojee" comments, the biggest difference is whether it is an accessible Web application or an installable application.
In the case of being a Web application. Something that works with Selenium. Like Katalon which is a good tool and supports Firefox Quantum, Protractor if it is a web based on Angular (Closer to the programmers). Both can work with browserStack and test in many browsers and OSs.
If it is valid to test only on Chrome, Puppeteer is a very fast option.
If it is a Java or .Net application, HP UFT is a very complete tool. But it does not run on Unix systems, it only supports Windows.
Another powerful and completely free tool is AutoIT, but again it only supports windows environments (also very close to programmers).

Is this application web based or windows based?

Important to think of the testing pyramid and how to achieve testing coverage below the UI.

There are several good suggestions above, one more I would make if you have access to the same interfaces programmers have (API, SQL, Proxy Calls, etc.), FIT/Fitnesse is worth looking into.
Another tool worth doing research on which is related to Selenium is WebDriver.

These tools require programmers in the Software Test team, which is another skill I would recommend based on several different Test Automation deployments I have been a part of, both in small companies as well as Enterprise deployments.
Do not skimp on hiring folks with these skills even though it may seem like an expensive proposition upfront, but in many circumstances it saves a tremendous amount of resources: $$, time, schedule predictability to name a few.

Folks with these skills will allow you to test sooner in development lifecycle, which is critical from at least two perspectives:
- The cost of finding defects early is very resource-efficient
- If you are trying to implement Agile processes it is essential.

Tosca is the best tool . We have completed a tool selection recently and found Tosca as the best tool across multiple platforms. Works across more than 35 technologies.No scripting required, Model based and can be utilized for automating across different OS platforms .

I would suggest Selenium WebDriver or Ranorex

Are you looking for a single solution that will test the same application deployed across the multiple platforms that you mentioned? Or are you testing different applications on the platforms mentioned?

I recommend ZAPTest automation tool for your requirement, this tool has both free and enterprise version with a unique & easy writing script called 1Script which allows cross-platform execution of a singular scripts with ZAP-fiX and HP ALM.

The answer is based on many factors, one big on is what is the Application under test? is it a web based solution? If it is then Selenium or Cypress are the best candidates. If not, you would need to look at tools like UFT and Ranorex.

Hi,
Selenium is an open source which and can be used all over the OS you've mentioned.

For IOS/Android yiu can use Selenium or Appium which is an extension of Selenium.

Java or Ruby Selenium would be the right tool.
Selenium is an open-source web automation tool and currently the most popular and widely used tool in the market. It can automate across multiple OS Like Windows, Mac, and Linux and browsers like Firefox, Chrome, IE, as well as Headless Browsers.
Selenium test script can be written in programming languages like Java, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl and JavaScript. The powerful Selenium WebDriver helps you create more complex and advanced automation scripts.