Start automating your tests 10X Faster in Simple English with Testsigma
Try for freeThe scope of software testing has increased in recent days. Software testers should ensure that the application is running without any issues on different devices, browsers, and resolutions.
Modern applications support both mobile and web versions, this brings a lot of challenges into testing, as different operating systems come into place. Along with testing applications on operating systems like Windows and macOS for the web, QAs also need to test mobile applications on different platforms like Android and iOS for the mobile.
Setting up infrastructure for all different types of testing is complex and maintenance is more challenging. For example, if you have a mobile application for Android and iOS, you need to test with different brand mobile devices. Procuring them and setting them up for testing is not an easy task.
Fortunately, we have cloud testing platforms like BrowserStack, AWS Device Farm, LambdaTest, SauceLabs, etc. These cloud testing platforms provide hundreds of real devices to test your application on the cloud.
When it comes to cloud testing tools BrowserStack and AWS Device Farm are the most popular. One can easily get confused about which one to choose when it comes to cloud platforms. However, by checking the comparison between BrowserStack vs AWS Device Farm, the right choice can be made.
Table Of Contents
Overview – Browserstack and AWS Device Farm
Device Farms or Cloud Testing providers are SaaS-based tools that provide an environment for the QA to test their web or mobile applications, remote. BrowserStack and AWS Device Farm are two popular cloud testing providers, let’s discuss them in detail.
What is AWS Device Farm?
AWS Device Farm is an app testing service by Amazon Web Services (AWS), that helps you to test and interact with your Android, iOS, and web applications on real devices. Many real devices like tablets, mobile phones, and desktops with relevant software are hosted in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform to make it easier for cloud testing.
What is BrowserStack?
BrowserStack is a cloud-based platform for web and mobile testing. It also provides hundreds of real devices that belong to different operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows, etc. BrowserStack has a lot of developer/tester-friendly features which make BrowserStack rank top in the cloud testing platforms.
Similarities of Browserstack and AWS Device Farm
BrowserStack and AWS Device Farm are two different tools. However, these are built for the same purpose because of which they share a lot of similarities. Some of the common similarities are listed below
- Both BrowserStack and AWS Device Farm host web and mobile devices
- They both support remote testing
- Both of them can be used for manual testing
- They both support automation script execution on the cloud
- They support different testing frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, etc.
- Both are commercial tools and provide good technical support
AWS Device Farm vs BrowserStack: What are the differences?
AWS Device Farm and BrowserStack both are commonly used for the execution of automation tests on the cloud, and they have many similar features as discussed above. However, knowing the difference can help us to make better choices.
| Feature | AWS Device Farm | BrowserStack |
| License Cost | First 1000 minutes free, $0.17 / Device minute thereafter | 30 Days free trial, thereafter plan starts from $39 / month for both Mobile and desktop |
| Pay-as-you-go billing plan | Yes, Supported | No Pay-as-you-go pricing plan. It only provides annual or monthly billing |
| Setup complexity | High | Moderate |
| Manual testing support | Yes, Supports live interaction | Yes, dedicated feature for manual testing |
| Desktop web testing support | Yes, Supported | Yes, Supported |
| Desktop operating system support | Windows only | Windows and MacOS |
| Mobile device testing | Yes, Supported | Yes, Supported |
| Supported mobile devices’ operating system | iOS and Android | iOS and Android |
| Number of Devices | Not disclosed | 3500+ real desktop and mobile browser combinations |
| Supported testing framework | Selenium is supported and can be integrated into other frameworks but integration is trickier | Supports all major testing frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, WebdriverIO, etc. |
| CI/CD integration support | Yes, supported | Yes, Supported |
| Third-party tools support | Limited | Supports many third-party tools integration including no-code test automation tools like Testsigma |
| Dedicated Technical support | Yes | Yes |
| Documentation | AWS documentation is not great, beginners may find a lot of difficulties in setting up and configure | Good documentation, easy for beginners. |
| Other Features | NA | Accessibility testing, visual regression testing, no-code testing tools integration, Low code automation support |
Pros and Cons AWS Device Farm
AWS Device Farm is popular in cloud testing platforms, it is backed by Amazon. it has many pros and cons. Let’s understand them.
Pros of AWS Device Farm
- Supports both automation and manual testing
- Organizations that have subscriptions to aws platform may get benefits in terms of billing
- Many real devices ready to test at any time
- Pay-as-you-go pricing helps in cost-saving
- Free tier access provides the first 1000 minutes of free usage
- Can be integrated with popular frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, etc.
- Provides feature to set up own private device lab on cloud
- CI/CD integration support
- Built-in fuzz test type to test the device by sending random events to the device
Cons of AWS Device Farm
- Only Windows is supported for desktop browser testing
- A limited number of mobile devices
- Less documentation on integrating the testing framework into the AWS Device Farm
- Does not support low code testing
- No support for visual testing, accessibility testing
- The learning curve is high
Pros and Cons of BrowserStack
BrowserStack is popularly used for cloud testing. Because of its developer-friendliness and rich features, it stands in the top 5 most used cloud testing tools list. However, like every tool BrowserStack also has many pros and cons, let’s discuss them in detail.
Pros of BrowserStack
- Supports both manual and automation testing
- Supports both desktop and mobile testing
- It provides 3000+ real devices on the cloud
- Some of the features(many are in Beta) that make Browserstack unique are accessibility testing, low code testing, integration into low-code testing tools like Testsigma, and visual Testing (formally Percy)
- Good documentation and easy-to-use
- Flexible, monthly and annual billing plans
- Supports both Windows and macOS desktop browsers to test
- Easy to integrate with CI/CD
- Many modern test automation frameworks such as Playwright, Cypress, and NightWatchJS can easily integrated into BrowserStack
Cons of BrowserStack
- No Pay-as-you-pricing model
- The free trial provides only limited features
- Tests are slow sometimes
- Through BrowserStack provides technical support at times, users don’t find it much helpful
What companies use AWS Device Farm?
Many companies rely on AWS Device Farm some of the major clients of AWS Device Farm are NFS, Etsy, Tableau, Gannet, Miniclip, Allstate, Rainforest, Gobibo, Mysmartprice, Interactive Intelligence, Zynga, Schibsted Group, Zillow, School Messenger, etc.
What companies use BrowserStack?
Browserstack provides a large number of device integrations, because of that many companies are using Browserstack to fulfill their testing needs. BrowserStack mentions on its official website more than 5000+ clients are using its platform for cloud testing which includes Microsoft, JQuery, X corporation, RBS, Discovery, Expedia, Wikimedia, etc.
What tools integrate with AWS Device Farm?
AWS Device Farm integrates with many tools such as Jenkins, Selenium, Appium, WebdriverIO, Github, Gradle, GitLab, etc.
What tools integrate with BrowserStack?
BrowserStack has a big list of integration tools, It supports all major tools in the market for its integrations. Some of the major tools are Selenium, Appium, Jenkins, Slack, TravisCI, Jira, Cypress, GitLab, AppCenter, Firebase, Cucumber, Katalon Studio, qTest, MSTeams, Playwright, etc.
Browserstack also integrates with low-code test automation tool Testsigma to provide their devices for remote test execution.
What are the Key Differences between AWS Device Farm and BrowserStack?
AWS Device Farm and Browserstack both help to make device testing or compatibility testing easier. These tools can also help in responsive testing and native mobile app feature testing. Some of the major differences between them are listed below.
- AWS Device Farm supports a pay-as-you-go pricing model. BrowserStack has only annual and monthly billing models.
- AWS Device Farm has a limited number of real devices for mobile and web testing. BrowserStack has a large number of real devices listed for testing
- Integrating modern frameworks like Playwright, Cypress, Testcafe, and WebdriverIO can be trickier in AWS Device Farm. BrowserStack provides easy integration to all popular modern and legacy web and mobile automation frameworks.
- AWS Device Farm documentation lacks explanation which makes it difficult for beginners. Browserstack has good documentation which helps all different levels of users to set up and manage their tests.
- AWS Device Farm supports integration to only a limited set of tools. BrowserStack supports all major tools integrations that include CI/CD tools, defect tracking tools, test automation framework, enterprise communication tools, test management tools, etc.
- AWS Device Farm’s only core feature is cloud-based real-device app testing. BrowserStack supports many other features along with real device app testing such as accessibility testing, visual regression testing, low code testing, and integration to no code testing tools
- The learning curve is high in AWS Device Farm. The learning curve is comparatively less in Browserstack
Alternative tools to Browserstack and AWS Device Farm
AWS Device Farm and Browserstack both aim to provide an environment for test execution. This can be a good solution if you are ready to maintain your test scripts and when you have dedicated technical resources with the required skill sets. As mentioned earlier, these tools can only help you in execution but you may still need to develop automation scripts using automation frameworks like Selenium, Typescript, Cypress, WebdriverIO, etc. As these are code-based automation tools, it requires good coding knowledge, and is difficult to maintain the framework. Considering all these complexities, no-code tools are gaining more popularity in recent days. No-code tools provide features to automate the test cases without any programming knowledge. When it comes to no-code tools, Testsigma stands at the top list. Testsigma provides almost every feature required for testing on its platform. Which means one subscription for all of your testing needs.
Testsigma can help you right from setting up a testing framework, automating test cases with no code, execute on the cloud without any third-party subscription, Testsigma platform supports 3000+ mobile, and web devices on the cloud, and it also provides seamless integration to your favorite cloud platforms such as BrowserStack, SauceLabs. Testsigma test can also integrated into the CI/CD pipelines. Finally, you do not need to configure any testing report, after execution it provides reports at different levels with a customizable dashboard. Testsigma has become one of the popular alternatives to AWS Device Farm and Browserstack.
Testsigma Vs Browserstack
BrowserStack supports the execution environment with real devices. However, you need to develop the test script using one of the test automation frameworks such as Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Playwright, etc. Though it supports low code testing as it is in the beta stage you may not be able to use it extensively.
Testsigma is the one-stop solution for all of your testing needs right from setting up the framework till you get the complete execution report. You can even automate and send the report to the intended audience. The no-code automation feature in Testsigma can help anyone to automate the test cases with ease, in simple English.
Testsigma is trusted by many large-scale enterprises like Cisco, HP, Honeywell, Samsung, IEEE, etc. Learn more abou Testsigma vs BrowserStack.
Testsigma Vs AWS Device Farm
Testsigma has more rich features than AWS Device Farm. AWS Device Farm focuses only on providing a cloud execution environment, whereas Testsigma is focused on providing a complete testing solution. Testsigma is the one-stop solution for all of your testing needs.
| Feature | AWS Device Farm | Testsigma |
| Supports manual testing | Yes | No |
| Supports test automation on the platform | No | Yes, in simple English and Java for customizations |
| Supports test execution on the platform | Yes | Yes |
| Supports automated test execution for the desktop web | Yes, via Selenium, Appium, WebdriverIO, Cypress, etc. | Yes, via simple English for codeless and Java for complex customizations |
| Supports automated test execution for the mobile web | Yes, via Appium | Yes, via simple English for codeless and Java for complex customizations |
| Supports automated test execution for the mobile app | Yes, via Mobile automation framework integrations | Yes, via simple English for codeless and Java for complex customizations |
| Supports testing of a locally hosted website | Yes | Yes |
| Supports geo-location testing | Yes limited support | Yes |
| Supports automated visual testing | No | Yes |
| Allows testing on real devices | Yes | Yes |
| Allows testing on emulators/simulators | No | No |
| Supports macOS for desktop web | No | Yes |
| Free/Premium | First 1000 minutes, thereafter chargeable. | Free Trial and Two premium versions. |
Conclusion
As the testing scope has increased with modern web development technologies, cross-platform testing is no longer optional, it must have a checklist for testing. Maintaining the infrastructure for all different operating systems and devices is not only complex but also requires significant effort and cost.
Cloud testing platforms come in handy to overcome such challenges as they provide real devices on demand and you can execute your automation tests on those real devices. Cloud testing platform mostly provide the testing environment, however, you need to develop the test automation script using one of the tools like Selenium, Appium, etc.
Selenium and Appium are code-based automation tools and require good programming knowledge and there is a steep learning curve. Due to that no-code automation tools are in demand which helps to automate the test cases without any coding knowledge.
Though there are many no-code testing tools available in the market Testsigma stands on top list as it provides a one-stop solution for all of your testing needs. Testsigma also supports cloud platforms by providing 3000+ real devices for test execution.
