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SaaS (software as a service) which is one of the most popular forms of cloud computing has completely revolutionized the world of cloud computing as it is being adopted by a majority of the IT organizations to modernize their IT structure.



With companies shifting their tools and platforms from on-premise to cloud-based solutions, there is no doubt the future belongs to the SaaS test automation platforms. As cloud-based frameworks require no expertise, installation time or effort and do not depend on a robust internal infrastructure, your tests can be up and running in just a matter of a few minutes. 



With SaaS, you don’t need to invest in internal infrastructure. In addition, you won’t need a dedicated team to maintain its operation.



But one question which still haunts most of the big software enterprises is:&nbsp;



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Is_SaaS_Really_Safe">1 Is SaaS Really Safe?</a></li><li><a href="#How_to_Choose_a_Trustworthy_SaaS_Platform">2 How to Choose a Trustworthy SaaS Platform?</a></li><li><a href="#Best_Practices_for_Controlling_Cloud_Access_in_Your_Organization">3 Best Practices for Controlling Cloud Access in Your Organization</a></li><li><a href="#Steps_to_Ensure_a_Safe_SaaS_Network_Access">4 Steps to Ensure a Safe SaaS Network Access</a></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="is-saas-really-safe">Is SaaS Really Safe?</h2>



Though SaaS has numerous advantages for businesses, a lot of organizations are afraid of moving to SaaS because of data security issues.&nbsp; The fear is because the data is no long managed internally and is now hosted on the cloud.



Some businesses don’t like this idea of outsourcing the security of their data to a third-party company, especially if they are dealing with sensitive data on a regular basis.



A lot of trustworthy SaaS companies or cloud service providers such as Testsigma having a strong history of client satisfaction have very strict data security policies which make them immune to breaches in their systems. Apart from this, a lot of SaaS providers host software in extremely safe and secure facilities which avoids a hacker or any type of cybercriminal from getting their hands on your organization’s sensitive or critical data.



Though organizations can have more control over on-premise applications through their own firewalls and antivirus software, they need to have a <a href="https://xl.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">professional IT department</a> for watching over data policies, access privileges, and application securities. But in the case of SaaS, the SaaSproviders are data security specialists who proactively manage and protect the clients’ servers, applications, platforms, and sensitive data. This particularly is a major advantage for small companies as they can get enterprise-grade technologies at a low price by adopting SaaS.



Hence the culture of distrusting third parties should be set aside to avoid the obstacles in achieving high growth and progress for the organization.



But there are certain precautionary measures which the managers and employees using or working on the SaaS products/services need to keep in mind, the most important of which is making the right SaaS platform selection.



<h2 id="how-to-choose-a-trustworthy-saas-platform">How to Choose a Trustworthy SaaS Platform?</h2>



It is your responsibility to check whether the&nbsp;<a href="https://outreachmonks.com/saas-marketing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SaaS marketing</a>&nbsp;platform you are going to use for SAAS marketing is safe or not, be it a quality management software, an ERP (Enterprise resource planning) software, or a codeless test automation tool.



It is important to make sure that the SaaS is safe by –



1. Determining whether the SaaS was deployed on a safe cloud server2. Checking that it has proper certifications3. Ensuring data privacy and other major security concerns4. Ensuring whether the platform is reliable and scalable5. Checking the current security protocols and the steps to be followed in case of a system breach



For instance, <a href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Testsigma (opens in a new tab)">Testsigma</a> works hard to provide faultless software and keep security at enterprise-grade standards to give their clients the best in class services.



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<h2 id="best-practices-for-controlling-cloud-access-in-your-organization">Best Practices for Controlling Cloud Access in Your Organization</h2>



According to the<a href="https://www.shredit.com/en-us/resource-center/original-research/security-tracker-2018" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)"> Security Tracker Survey</a> conducted by Shred-it on information security, it has been found that employee negligence is one of the biggest information security risks to businesses. Hence it is important to effectively control and monitor how your employees use SaaS solutions to ensure that security standards are maintained.



Here are some of the best practices to be followed for controlling cloud access in your organization:



1. Set a fixed day and time for allowed access with the help of automatic locking systems2. Give hierarchical access as per the employee’s function within the company3. Enhance the security layers, for example, a two-step authentication4. If possible, give access to systems and applications via mobile or just through corporate computers5. Frequent training as a practice should be adopted in organizations to help employees regarding the responsibilities of access and use of phones, computers in order to avoid security-related issues



<h2 id="steps-to-ensure-a-safe-saas-network-access">Steps to Ensure a Safe SaaS Network Access</h2>



It is important to make sure that the basic safety precautions have been taken before adopting a SaaS network to ensure safe and secure access to the platform. Here are certain steps to follow:



1. Don’t record extremely sensitive or critical data. Though you get access to your company’s most critical information on a single platform, it does not mean that you have to leave them saved in your virtual environment.It is ideal to have a filter or another type of storage to secure the most precious and valuable information for the company.



2. It is important to select a SaaS provider which can fully integrate with your enterprise with identity verification services. Make your IT architecture such that it monitors even the slightest of suspicious activity continuously and take necessary steps to avoid damage.



3. Make sure you have extra internal security solutions such as having periodic backups and regular audits from time to time. Organizations must understand that even a loose nut can open the doors for hackers and other types of virtual criminals.



4. It is important to know what and how much to expect from a complete SaaS testing solution as SaaS is safe as long as the organization knows how to implement it.



5. Data encryption is one of the most important parts of data security as always make sure that your cloud data is encrypted, at rest and in transit.



QA managers should keep these security measures in mind while they are planning to implement a secure SaaS platform. Though there are several options available in the market, it is always best to analyze both their requirements and the features provided by these SaaS platforms to select the best solution which perfectly fits with the company’s architecture.



Implementing a <a href="https://cameldigital.co/blog/saas-ppc/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PPC for SaaS</a> strategy can ensure that businesses connect with potential customers who are actively searching for software solutions.



The idea of SaaS applications more vulnerable to data breaches as compared to on-premise solutions is a myth as cloud security is only going to get stronger with time and give businesses more reasons to switch to SaaS.



Being a SaaS codeless test automation platform, Testsigma completely understands the privacy and security of its customer’s sensitive data and hence uses the best information security practices to provide a secured and reliable test automation platform. Testsigma has commercially reasonable security measures in place in order to protect its clients against the loss, misuse or alteration of the information under control.



In the end, security in the cloud is a shared responsibility and the onus of a safe SaaS is not only on the hands of the SaaS service provider but also on the hands of the QA manager and the employees of the company and each party should know and practice their duties regularly with honesty to achieve a no security breach environment. 



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Is Testsigma secure for your organization

Is Testsigma secure for your organization?

Testers, in their day-to-day lives, have to do many types of tasks. And to enable them to do those tasks there are many types of testing tools in the market too. These tools usually specialize in helping the testers perform a certain task. Sometimes these tools can be used to completely automate the tasks while at other times these tools can make the tasks easier.



In this article, we will try to broadly categorize these types of testing tools. The categories have been created according to when these tools are used.



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Types_of_Testing_Tools">1 Types of Testing Tools</a><ul><li><a href="#Test_Case_Management_Tools">1.1 Test Case Management Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Test_Case_Generation_Tools">1.2 Test Case Generation Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Test_Data_Preparation_Tools">1.3 Test Data Preparation Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Test_Execution_Tools">1.4 Test Execution Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Cross_Browser_Testing_Tools">1.5 Cross Browser Testing Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Coverage_Measurement_Tools">1.6 Coverage Measurement Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Performance_Testing_Tools">1.7 Performance Testing Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Bug_Reporting_Tools">1.8 Bug Reporting Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Project_Planning_and_Tracking_Tools">1.9 Project Planning and Tracking Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Incident_Management_Tools">1.10 Incident Management Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Screen_CaptureRecord_Tools">1.11 Screen Capture/Record Tools</a></li><li><a href="#Tools_for_Analysing_Logs">1.12 Tools for Analysing Logs</a></li><li><a href="#Other_Tools">1.13 Other Tools</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="types-of-testing-tools">Types of Testing Tools</h2>



<h3 id="test-case-management-tools"><a href="https://testsigma.com/test-management" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Test Case Management Tools</a></h3>



A tester&#8217;s life moves around test cases and bugs. For the management of test cases of different features, the test case management tools are used. Some examples of test case management tools are TestRail, Practitest, TestCollab.



<h3 id="test-case-generation-tools">Test Case Generation Tools</h3>



To begin with, test cases are created manually but when there are some patterns that can be repeated for test case creation, test case generation tools are used. Some teams create these tools in-house while there are some available in the market for standard test case generation techniques.



<h3 id="test-data-preparation-tools">Test Data Preparation Tools</h3>



When test cases need to be tested with a good amount of test data,&nbsp; use of test data preparation tools proves beneficial in many ways. They could specially be very useful for data generation during performance or reliability testing. These tools can also be used during functional testing and acceptance by testers as well as developers.



Features or characteristics of test data preparation tools are as follows:



<ul><li>Extraction of required data records from databases and/or files;</li><li>For “data cleansing” of production data such that it can be used for testing purposes without any fear of data theft;</li><li>For rearrangement of data and records to facilitate testing;</li><li>Setting up of existing data or generation of&nbsp; new data according to requirements&nbsp;</li><li>To generate similar test data (from a template) in bulk for volume testing</li></ul>



Some majorly used test data preparation tools are:&nbsp;



<ul><li>MOCKAROO: Generate up to 1,000 rows of realistic test data in CSV, JSON, SQL, and Excel formats.</li><li>DATPROF: Data masking, subsetting, provisioning and discovery</li><li>Informatica: Enterprise cloud data management and data integration</li><li>CA Test Data Manager (Datamaker): High-performance data subsetting, data masking, test matching, etc. The tool generates, stores, and reuse the test data in the test data repository.</li></ul>



<h3 id="test-execution-tools">Test Execution Tools</h3>



 These are the tools that are used to execute tests. These tools are also called “Test running tools”. Originally, these tools started with recording and playing test steps hence these are also called record-and-play tools.



Though as the requirements changed and tests became more complex, just record and playback was not sufficient. Then there was the need of some scripting support to create the steps such that the steps could be edited as and when needed.



Selenium was one of the first tools that supported conversion of the recorded tests to required scripting language. This made the test cases easier to maintain according to changing requirements.



Now, there are codeless/scriptless testing tools too that allow maintenance of these tests even without writing code or script. They use different technologies for this. <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/scriptless-automated-testing-is-not-the-same-as-record-and-playback/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read here about all such technologies in detail. </a>



One such tool is <a href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Testsigma</a> that lets you write test cases in simple English language. The test cases are easy to edit and maintain too as Testsigma uses AI in the backend to add to the efficiency for all maintenance related tasks.



<h3 id="cross-browser-testing-tools"><a href="https://testsigma.com/cross-browser-testing-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cross Browser Testing Tools</a></h3>



These tools help execution of test cases on different browsers and devices. Some examples are Browserstack, Browserling. When a test execution tool integrates with the cross browser testing tools, the tool becomes more beneficial.



There are tools that do like Testsigma which supports integration with 5 Browserstack and 4 other testing labs for <a href="https://testsigma.com/cross-browser-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cross browser testing</a>.



<h3 id="coverage-measurement-tools">Coverage Measurement Tools</h3>



Coverage Measurement Tools are used to measure the thoroughness of testing by measuring the number of items that the testing covered. The item can be a number of lines of code or methods or components or conditions.&nbsp;



One example of these tools are code coverage tools. There are different code coverage tools according to the programming language in which the code is written. These tools are integrated with other software development tools. For example, They can be&nbsp; integrated with building tools like Ant, Maven, and Gradle as well as with <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/ci-cd-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CI/CD tools</a> like Jenkins.



Examples of some open source code-coverage tools are: Cobertura for JAVA



Codecover for Java and COBOL



Coverage.py for Python



EMMA for JAVA



<h3 id="performance-testing-tools"><a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/performance-testing/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Performance Testing</a> Tools</h3>



The purpose of performance testing is to make sure that the application is able to perform according to expected standards even when the load is varied. The performance testing is used to measure the metrics that ensure that the system is stable and performing as expected. These can vary depending on the functionality of the application. But the most commonly measured metrics are: &nbsp;speed, response time, reliability, resource usage, scalability.



Some examples of famous performance testing tools are:



LoadNinja



<a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/jmeter-vs-selenium/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apache JMeter</a>



WebLOAD



LoadUI Pro



Gatling



<h3 id="bug-reporting-tools">Bug Reporting Tools</h3>



When testers execute test cases or do ad-hoc testing, they find bugs and a tool is needed to report these bugs. These tools also easily integrate with the other tools in the software development life cycle.



Examples of some majorly used bug reporting tools are:



Bugzilla



BugHerd



Mantis Bug Tracker



The Bug Genie



<h3 id="project-planning-and-tracking-tools">Project Planning and Tracking Tools</h3>



These are the tools that are used to plan and track the software development activities. Examples of widely used tools are JIRA, Trello, Microsoft Project Planner.



<h3 id="incident-management-tools"><a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/incident-management-systems/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Incident Management Tools</a></h3>



Whenever a customer faces an issue and reports it, they are handled by incident management tools. These tools integrate with other software development processes and improve the efficiency and productivity of the team. Some examples of these tools are crisis control, freshservice.



<h3 id="screen-capture-record-tools">Screen Capture/Record Tools</h3>



When testers report bugs, they need to give all information they have such that the developers and management are able to understand the bug completely. For this, the best way is to send screenshots and <a href="https://www.veed.io/learn/how-to-screen-record-on-windows" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">screen-recordings</a>.



Testers use many tools for this purpose. Some of most used ones are:



Screencastify: for recording your screen from a Chrome extension.



Apowersoft: Unlimited for mobile screen capture.



Snipping Tool : A windows tool for screen capture and recording



<h3 id="tools-for-analysing-logs">Tools for Analysing Logs</h3>



	Every application generates some logs during use. When testing, these logs can prove very useful for testers. They might need to add some logs to the bug reports too. To check and analyse these logs there are multiple tools that testers can use, some of which are:



Graylog



Nagios



Elastic Stack



LOGalyze



In addition to this, testers also use different tools in their day to day life to ease their day to day tasks. For eg. if a tester has to test the HTTP responses, they would use an HTTP proxy tool that will let them check the responses at a granular level. This is when they don’t need to automate the test cases. The examples of such tools are Fiddler and Charles.



<h3 id="other-tools">Other Tools</h3>



Another tool that has been designed to help think better is mindmaps. It helps testers to represent their notes in a easy to review, graphical format. One can note the test ideas, bugs, testing notes in the form of mind maps.



In the categories of types of testing tools we listed above, there are n number of tools in the market but all can not be used in all circumstances.



Many factors need to be considered before choosing the best types of testing tools for a purpose, most important of which are:



<ul><li>Optimized testing costs</li><li>Increased <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/test-efficiency/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">testing efficiency</a></li><li>Highest standards of Quality</li></ul>



Is there some tool that you would like mentioned in this list? Do let us know in the comments!

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Selenium Vs Testsigma |  Which is the Best Automation Testing Tool?

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Behavior Driven Development with Gherkin | The Complete Guide for BDD Testing

Selenium was first conceptualized in 2004 at ThoughtWorks for website automation and has come a long way from it&#8217;s first Web Driver version to becoming a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Selenium was first conceptualized in 2004 at ThoughtWorks for website automation and has come a long way from it's first Web Driver version to becoming a W3C standard protocol. With a single interface that lets you write test scripts in programming languages like Ruby, Java, NodeJS, PHP, among others and being open-source has gained quite a lot of popularity so much so that Selenium stands tall among the most popular commercial tools today.
 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/webdriver/" target="_blank">W3C standard protocol</a>. With a single interface that lets you write test scripts in programming languages like Ruby, Java, NodeJS, PHP, among others and being open-source, Selenium has gained quite a lot of popularity so much so that it stands tall among the most popular commercial tools today. 



Anyone who has worked on&nbsp;<a href="http://seleniumhq.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Selenium</a>&nbsp;would agree that it is not that easy. If the number of&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/issues" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">issues</a>&nbsp;open at the moment and the number of questions being posted on forums like StackOverflow is any indication, the problems faced by Selenium users does not seem to be decreasing.



The test cases are brittle, the failures are common, and the maintenance of automated test cases takes more time and cost than it takes to automate them. However, with a very strong community and integrations, it is workable. But if you are working in tight timelines, this wouldn&#8217;t be the ideal way. 



If we start thinking about why Selenium tests fail, an obvious reason would be that the websites and the technologies used to build them have been evolving at a fast pace. And the number of additions to the features and functionalities has only been increasing exponentially.



Keeping up with the changes and making sure the tests run reliably every single time is not an easy job. 



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Let_us_look_at_a_few_reasons_why_Selenium_tests_fail">1 Let us look at a few reasons why Selenium tests fail:</a></li><li><a href="#Some_common_errors_that_most_Selenium_users_may_have_come_across_but_are_easy_to_fix">2 Some common errors that most Selenium users may have come across but are easy to fix:</a></li><li><a href="#Limitations_of_using_Selenium_for_Automation">3 Limitations of using Selenium for Automation:</a></li><li><a href="#Alternatives_to_Selenium">4 Alternatives to Selenium</a></li><li><a href="#Benefits_of_using_above_tools">5 Benefits of using above tools:</a></li></ul></div>
<h2>Let us look at a few reasons why Selenium tests fail:</h2> 



<ol class="list_style_disc plr15" style="padding-left:0 !important"><li>Asynchronous websites</li>



Selenium tests are developed keeping a particular order in mind and when there are websites that are built using asynchronous architecture. The order of response cannot be fixed at all times. In such scenarios, sometimes the responses from the website are not in order. As a result, the test case fails. Such failures are tough to debug as well because they are not reproducible at all times. 



<li>Bugs</li>



With websites rapidly evolving, multiple languages and libraries are available for website development. There are a lot of features that needs to be supported.Selenium does come out with a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="With websites rapidly evolving, multiple languages and libraries are available for website development. There are a lot of features that needs to be supported.
Selenium does come out with a better version frequently supporting any new changes that come up but they also leave out bugs and sometimes these bugs appear while people are trying to automate their websites.
 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://medium.com/hackernoon/selenium-4-0-alpha-released-what-test-automation-engineers-can-expect-6c1838b79243" target="_blank">better version</a> frequently supporting any new change that comes up but they also leave out bugs and sometimes these bugs appear while people are trying to automate their websites. 



<li>Dynamic websites that change without refresh</li>



Now websites are built that do a page reload or refresh rarely and, all the changes happen dynamically using JavaScript on the same page. In some scenarios, if there is a small error in one step, the whole test case fails because there is no opportunity to reload or refresh the page.&nbsp; 



<li>Small changes in the website source code</li>



The most common example of such a change is when a unique ui identifier(also known as locator) of an element on the web page changes. When such a change is checked in, all the test cases that were referring to this unique ui identifier fails and needs to be fixed.
Sometimes small changes are passed on to the code that make the test cases fail but Selenium does not report the exact reason for failure and it makes the test cases seem flaky. 



<li>Timeouts</li>



Timeout errors where Selenium fails while waiting for a component to load are very common while automating using Selenium and can be handled by adding appropriate &#8220;waits&#8221;. Just ensure that explicit waits are only added where necessary because that increases the overall run time of the test case. Implicit waits are better to use in such scenarios.



<h2>Some common errors that most Selenium users may have come across but are easy to fix:</h2> 



<ol class="list_style_disc plr15" style="padding-left:0 !important"><li>Alerts, Pop-ups, Nested IFrames</li>Selenium Users faced problems while automating alerts, pop-ups and Nested IFrames related functionalities on a website but with the latest version of Selenium, this problem has been handled quite well. If there is anything that cannot be handled, it is the OS level alerts because Selenium can only handle website related operations. <li>Selenium WebDriver version mismatch</li>Selenium releases WebDrivers for supported browsers to execute tests on them. If the installed browser on the system does not match the versions supported by the web drivers, an exception like this is reported: “This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 74”. The solution is to either update the Selenium WebDriver to support the installed browser or update the installed browser to the version supported by selenium webdriver and the error will go away.
 <li>ElementNotFoundException</li>
Sometimes during automation, testers miss out on accounting of small components like the page load progress icon and when the script executes, it fails to find the element that will load after the page loads. These situations can easily be solved by accounting for the page load and waiting for the page to load completely. Sometimes an implicit wait for the required element to load can also solve such problems. <li>TimeOutExceptionThis exception appears when Selenium waited for some operation to complete or for an element to appear or disappear but it did not happen during the time it was expected to wait. The time it is supposed to wait can be configured as well.</li> 



<li>Changing location for Selectors</li></ol>



Sometimes when a site is responsive, the location of the selectors on a web page changes with change in size. This results in test cases failing with the web page size. Such failures can be fixed by using a selector that does not change with changing size for eg. using unique names or ui identifiers as selectors. 



Above are the most common exceptions that people face but if you are looking for a more detailed list, check <a href="https://katalon.com/resources-center/blog/selenium-exceptions">here</a>.
These exceptions may occur while testing using any automated testing tool but there are certain limitations of Selenium that are detailed below.



<h2 style="padding-bottom: 10px">Limitations of using Selenium for Automation: </h2>



<ol class="list_style_disc plr15" style="padding-left:0 !important"><li>Difficult to set up initially</li>



Selenium works with certain programming languages. Elaborate setup for development in the programming language and support for Selenium needs to be prepared before automation can be started.



<li>Substantial time is taken to automate</li>



Because every step has to be coded it takes a good amount of time for just automating a simple workflow.



<li>Substantial time is taken to maintain the test cases</li>



If there are failures in test scripts, it may take a long time to debug and figure out the root cause of failure which also means more cost.



<li>Pass/Fail Reports</li> Selenium does not offer rich reports on its own and requires third party integrations for more than just Pass/Fail error reports.</ol>



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<h2 id="alternatives-to-selenium">Alternatives to Selenium</h2>



Instead of spending a lot of time, money and effort on getting things to work with Selenium, try using other tools that are there in the market and have dedicated technical support, some of such tools are:



<ol class="list_style_disc plr15" style="padding-left:0 !important"><li>Testsigma</li>



<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Testsigma is an NLP based automated testing tool that lets you create automated tests easily and efficiently in just plain English. The AI-powered system learns to maintain test cases if there are any changes in the website also suggest changes and indicate the tests that will be affected.https://testsigma.com/blog/selenium-alternative-for-automated-regression-testing/ (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank">Testsigma</a> is an NLP based automated testing tool that lets you create automated tests easily and efficiently in just plain English.



This AI-powered automated testing tool is an <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Testsigma is an NLP based automated testing tool that lets you create automated tests easily and efficiently in just plain English. This AI-powered automated testing tool is an ideal alternative for Selenium. maintain test cases if there are any changes in the website also suggest changes and indicate the tests that will be affected. (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com/blog/selenium-alternative-for-automated-regression-testing/" target="_blank">ideal alternative</a> for Selenium with all the flexibility that enterprise teams need.



 <li>TOSCA</li>



With automatic object recognition and test case maintenance, <a href="https://www.tricentis.com/products/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">TOSCA </a>is a popular&nbsp; automated testing tool.&nbsp;It maximises reusability and increases maintainability with model-based test automation.



 <li>Katalon</li>



With a Selenium-based engine, <a href="https://www.katalon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="With a Selenium-based engine, Katalon is designed to create and reuse automated test scripts for UI without coding. It is free to use. It also has the option to automate complex scenarios using JAVA or Groovy. (opens in a new tab)">Katalon</a> is designed to create and reuse automated test scripts for UI without coding. It is free to use. It also has the option to automate complex scenarios using JAVA or Groovy.



 <li>TestComplete</li>



Tests can be recorded, scripted or manually created with keyword driven operations and used for automated playback and error logging.While Selenium can only execute tests in a browser (and mobile apps using Appium), <a href="https://smartbear.com/product/testcomplete/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">TestComplete </a>supports Windows applications.



With the support of custom extensions and plugins, TestComplete functions can be extended as per need.



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<h2 id="benefits-of-using-above-tools">Benefits of using above tools:</h2>



<ol class="list_style_disc plr15" style="padding-left:0 !important"><li>Dedicated technical support</li>



If you face a problem you will always have support available who will give you a timeline to solve any issue you face. They will also help you figure out the issue in case are stuck. Thus you won’t be left alone in the wild looking for solutions when you need immediate help. 



<li>Easier Test Case Creation</li>



These automated testing tools do not demand scripting/programming skills.&nbsp;Katalon and TestComplete use a record and playback approach for test case creation while TOSCA automatically recognises the objects in the application and then test cases are created using the Model based approach. Testsigma on the other hand lets you write automated tests just using plain English! 



<li>Automatic Test Case maintenance</li>



Testsigma, TOSCA, TestComplete have an AI-powered core that enables automatic maintenance of test cases whenever some changes in the website cause the test cases to fail. 



<li>Easier to set up</li>



Testsigma is a cloud-based automated testing tool that hosts all automated tests on the cloud so you don’t need to spend any time or money on initial setup. There is also support for local executions(Hybrid) on your local devices. In comparison, Testsigma is quite easy to get started. 



<li>Low Learning Curve</li>



The special focus of all the above testing tools is the ease to learn them. Thus a lot of time and money that is spent on learning new tools can be saved if any of these automated testing tools are used. It would be quite easy for beginners into automation to get accustomed with these automated testing tools. 



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Selenium is still a mainstream automated testing tool since its inception but now the times are changing and when there are new technologies like AI and ML being employed, teams should explore them to actually know what they have to offer.



Since development workflows are now more complex than they have ever been, and will probably grow yet more complex over time. Selenium is poised to remain relevant for modern application testing. Depending on the requirements, we should be more open to exploring more automated testing tools and choose the relevant one that properly fit our testing requirements.



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Why Do Selenium Tests Fail? : Top Reasons

Selenium Automation Testing : Top Benefits & Challenges

Software Testing has not evolved to meet the demands of the current accelerated delivery needs. As software becomes sophisticated,&nbsp;traditional approaches to Testing&nbsp;would not be sufficient. With the advancement in technology, Test Automation was introduced to accelerate the process of testing simply by automating test cases and scenarios.



In today’s world, almost every organization is onto Test Automation for better business results.



 



For the past few years, the First generation of Test Automation has been in the spotlight. These provide businesses and testing teams a macro recording which runs in parallel with an Application Programming Interface (API), whereas test execution engines send a command and wait for it to be executed. This tool was working well for short length automation and was also done by combining a logical sequence of such short length macros and test flows. 



Then came the Second generation Test Automation Tools that offers full scripting capability with more features and better support for user interaction. Most of the windows based on common tasks such as operations, application, launch, generating reports were simplified. Frameworks like these are required to be built on long term test automation to go at par with quality the business is expecting. 



As the continuous innovation in technology, <a href="https://testsigma.com/blog/scriptless-test-automation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Scriptless Test Automation</a> is rapidly gaining its popularity amongst various IT companies – simply because it is designed to help the testing team to quickly build ready-to-use automated test cases and reusable code assets that have full test coverage.



Scriptless Testing is a term used for test automation done without having to write any script or code. This type of testing is also called codeless testing sometimes. Check the guide for an in-depth read on <a aria-label="Check the guide for an in-depth read on codeless testing. (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com/codeless-testing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">codeless testing.</a> 



<div id="toc_container" class="no_bullets">Table Of Contents<ul class="toc_list"><li><a href="#Second-Gen_Test_Automation_Tool_Selenium">1 Second-Gen Test Automation Tool, “Selenium”</a></li><li><a href="#Scriptless_Test_Automation_Tools_A_Less_to_Zero_Coding_for_QA_Professionals">2 Scriptless Test Automation Tools: A “Less to Zero Coding” for QA Professionals</a></li><li><a href="#Selenium_Vs_Scriptless_Test_Automation_Tool_What_is_Best">3 Selenium Vs Scriptless Test Automation Tool: What is Best?</a></li><li><a href="#The_Comparison_Battle_Concludes">4 The Comparison Battle Concludes!</a></li><li><a href="#Testsigma_NLP_based_Scriptless_Test_Automation_Solution">5 Testsigma: NLP based Scriptless Test Automation Solution</a></li></ul></div>
<h2 id="second-gen-test-automation-tool-selenium">Second-Gen Test Automation Tool, “Selenium”</h2>



Selenium is a suite of web browser automation tools to automate browsers across a range of platforms. It is principally used to automate web apps for testing reasons even though it is capable of so many things. The majority of big-name browser vendors support it. Furthermore, many of these either have taken or are taking steps to make it a native part of their browsers. Besides, it is the core technology used in serried of other APIs, browser automation tools, and automation testing frameworks.



Selenium runs on various browsers and operating systems, and a range of programming languages and frameworks can control it. Plus, it can automate tedious web-based administration tasks.



It also provides for authoring tests without the necessity to acquire knowledge of a test scripting language (Selenium IDE). Selenium also provides a test domain-specific language (Selenese) to write tests in several popular programming languages, including Scala, Groovy, Java, Ruby, C#, PHP, Python, and Perl. The tests can then run against current and newest web browsers. Selenium deploys on Windows, macOS and Linux platforms.



Selenium is primarily composed of respective components with specific role assists the web application test automation development. These are Selenium Grid, Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment), Selenium WebDriver, and Selenium RC (Remote Control).







<h2 id="scriptless-test-automation-tools-a-less-to-zero-coding-for-qa-professionals">Scriptless Test Automation Tools: A “Less to Zero Coding” for QA Professionals</h2>



&#8220;Scriptless” implies “no scripting and programming”. This is somewhat misleading to the audience especially to those who are new to software testing. Scriptless testing doesn’t eliminate scripting and is not suitable for the actual coding of any test automation tool. It is an extremely flexible testing framework with minimal exposure to code. In layman’s terms, it can be said that scriptless testing is an approach to conduct testing without scripting or coding in any programming language. It reduces the time required for creating automated tests by considerably minimizing the amount of scripting needed. 



Scriptless Test Automation is a more structured model where the majority of test cases can be automated by functional users and those are reusable scripts. It is a myth that test architects will be involved in scriptless testing but in real-time they are not. Based on their expertise and knowledge, test architects will be involved in identifying the possible reusable part of the test scripts. When operational scope spreads out, few new components will be added to the application and then test architects will be involved to integrate them. 



Scriptless Test Automation is being refined to highly organized tools for use in multiple real-time test scenarios. The developers of those tools shall have analyzed various business cases, deployment environments, operational scenarios before building each reusable components for their tools. Hence they offer a good standard of practical reliability as well. 



With scriptless Test Automation, testers can create better automation scripts that showcase the core functionality of the application. This type of testing will certainly reduce the number of licenses for the testing tools. Scriptless Test Automation will be more useful from product development companies where the same resources can be leveraged for multiple tasks. 



Thought it has many advantages, there are scriptless test automation frameworks that have complex underlying codes that need to be maintained and updated periodically. Those frameworks are not free – they consume initial and maintenance costs which is more than the tool’s cost. Therefore, choosing the right framework specific to your business requirement is the only manual effort you need to do. 



Using Scriptless Test Automation tools, the testing team does not need any coding or scripting knowledge to create automated tests. However, as a framework, it is a good practice to provide the capability of customization. 



For advanced users, customization can be done by writing their code for covering some unique test scenarios.



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<h2 id="selenium-vs-scriptless-test-automation-tool-what-is-best">Selenium Vs Scriptless Test Automation Tool: What is Best?</h2>



Selenium is required to be built on long term test automation to go at par with quality. For instance, if the testing team wanted to reuse test scripts then it is best to leverage Selenium IDE. Selenium IDE is one of the components of Selenium capable of recording, editing and debugging of functional test scripts. Test scripts have to be made from scratch by the testers, therefore, they are required to know programming or scripting. 



On the other hand, Scriptless Automation Tools already provide ready-to-use automated test cases and reusable code objects. Mostly for Scriptless Test Automation tools, these features are out-of-the-box. It is not mandatory for the testers to know programming or scripting of some sort. It empowers testers and business users to automate testers without worrying about coding. The problem of coding is largely taken care of by the Scriptless Test Automation tool already. 



In terms of debugging test scripts, Scriptless Test Automation tools eliminate the need to repeatedly debug scripted test code as this already done by the tool itself, while in Selenium, automation testers when encountering any test script errors have to debug the test code manually. 



Setting up test environments for Selenium is difficult. Selenium uses various plugins to support Test Automation thus making it a must for system owners and administrators to update and configure everything manually. Scriptless test environments can be built faster and maintained easily creating a hassle-free update environment.



Hence, making a Scriptless Test Automation tool a perfect fit for Test Automation for Agile and DevOps. 



Using Scriptless Test Automation Tool, the testing team can easily automate large test suites faster almost double the times faster compared to Selenium. It greatly reduces the “go to market” time, which comes in handy when there are major software updates. In short, the more the test coverage, the better as it produces a well-refined product which is a win-win situation for the business. 



Scalability and Flexibility is one of the most desirable in Scriptless. It is flexible to work with various browsers available in the market and it scales an amount of workload as much as the business requires. For Selenium to be flexible enough to work with multiple browsers, it needs to have components 



<h2 id="the-comparison-battle-concludes">The Comparison Battle Concludes!</h2>



It’s time to reach our conclusion. Both contenders, Selenium and Scriptless Test Automation Tools do what they do best. Now, which is better?&nbsp; 



Overall, Scriptless Test Automation Tools have an edge over Selenium. Scriptless test automation tools can easily be set up, configured and maintained and does not require any plugins as Selenium does. It can handle the bulk amount of test cases way faster than Selenium.



Scriptless Test Automation Tools do not require that their functional users know scripting and programming. Users can conduct their QA activities with “<a href="https://d1gm6dy5ofa99q.cloudfront.net/assets/videos/common/automated-testcase.mp4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">ready-to-use</a>” test steps which already exist within the platform. 



Unlike Selenium, one needs to add Selenium IDE to leverage playback tool which grants users feature slightly similar with reusable codes scriptless has. If we talk about scalability and flexibility, scriptless is the one in favor. Everything you need is already available. Selenium, for the most part, requires components to utilize and fully leverage it. 



The battle is over. If you are looking for the perfect Automation Testing Suite and a complete solution fit for Agile and DevOps environments, then a Scriptless Automation Tool is definitely for you.



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<h2 id="testsigma-nlp-based-scriptless-test-automation-solution">Testsigma: NLP based Scriptless Test Automation Solution</h2>



When we start talking about Test Automation, we can create a list of issues every business is facing and some which are critical for the business. Some of the major pain points include the usage of multiple tools required in testing sessions, rigorous scripting and coding, test automation frameworks, test lab, integrations and other QA related concerns that need to be addressed.&nbsp; Even with all these, your testing team is all over the place. 



It’s time to say goodbye to all this.



Say hello to Testsigma<a aria-label="It’s time to say goodbye to all this. Say hello to Testsigma, a complete test automation ecosystem.
 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">,</a>&nbsp;a complete Test Automation ecosystem! Testsigma is an NLP based Scriptless Test Automation tool meant for all! The tests are written in simple English and can automate Web, Mobile apps and API services. To learn more about the tool, the product and services, reach out to the chat section or visit the <a aria-label="Testsigma is a Scriptless Test Automation tool meant for all! It can automate Web, Mobile apps and API services in plain English.
To learn more about the tool, the product and services, reach out to the chat section or visit the Testsigma's&nbsp;home page. (opens in a new tab)" href="https://testsigma.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Testsigma&#8217;s&nbsp;home page</a>.



 



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