Top 10 Continuous Testing Tool
It is always best to find the bugs in your software before it’s launched to production. This will help you establish a name for yourself in the industry with regards to quality engineering as well as lowering delivery costs.
This is where the idea of continuous testing comes in handy and ensures software quality and development efficiency in the continuous delivery process.
So, in this blog, we will find out what continuous testing is and how you can do it with the help of Continuous Testing Tools.
What is Continuous testing and why is it necessary?
In order to manage software deployments more quickly and effectively, continuous testing is the process of integrating automated feedback at various stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC). The tests are run frequently, ideally after every code change, to identify bugs and issues as early as possible.
Find below why testers and developers Adopted Continuous Testing
Businesses that are expanding can gain multiple advantages by integrating continuous testing into DevOps procedures.
Increased quality and efficiency in deployments
For dispersed projects, testers can find the errors quickly.
An enhanced user experience
It is simple to incorporate continuous testing into the pipeline for software delivery.
Testers and developers have adopted continuous testing to receive immediate feedback and mitigate risks throughout the software development lifecycle.
The risk of releasing a buggy product is reduced.
Once you are aware of its significance for the SDLC and DevOps teams, learn about its techniques.
Continuous Testing Methodologies
Continuous testing includes a variety of tests to ensure the usability, security, reliability, and performance of the system. The following are some types of testing that should be considered for use by organisations that wish to succeed with continuous agile testing.
Smoke Testing
Smoke testing acts as the first line of defence within continuous testing. It involves running a set of quick, automated tests that verify the most basic functionalities of the application after every code change
Shift- left Testing
This approach emphasizes moving testing activities earlier in the development lifecycle (SDLC) to catch bugs sooner. This can involve unit testing, integration testing, and API testing.
Shift-right Testing
The shift-right testing approach extends testing beyond traditional development stages and into production environments. It includes performance testing, security testing, and user monitoring applications for errors and performance issues after deployment.
API Testing
APIs facilitate communication between two software components through a set of protocols and definitions. API testing ensures that APIs function correctly and communicate seamlessly with other system parts.
Behaviour-driven Development (BDD)
This collaborative approach focuses on creating tests based on user stories and acceptance criteria. This ensures that the software meets the needs of the users.
Test-driven development (TDD)
In this approach, developers write unit tests before they write code. This helps to ensure that the code is well-designed and meets the requirements.Here you can learn the difference between TDD and BDD.
Performance testing
This type of testing assesses the performance of an application under load. It helps identify bottlenecks and ensures that the application can meet user demands.
Security testing
Security testing is crucial to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in software. Continuous security testing helps to ensure that applications are secure throughout the development lifecycle.
Top 10 Continuous Tools in 2024
Numerous ways exist to test applications to improve their functionality and efficiency. Below, we have discussed some of the best continuous testing tools. Pick one or many continuous testing tools to accelerate and ease the task of application deployment for testers and developers.
1. Jenkins
Jenkins is an open-source automation server written in Java. It facilitates Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipelines by helping automate the software development portions related to building, testing, and deploying. This system is server-based and operates within servlet containers, like Apache Tomcat.
It acts as a central hub for automating various tasks, including:
Building code: Jenkins can trigger builds whenever code changes are committed to a version control system (VCS) like Git. This ensures the latest code is always compiled and ready for testing.
Running tests: It integrates with a vast array of testing frameworks and tools, allowing you to execute unit tests, integration tests, UI tests, and more as part of the CI/CD pipeline.
Deployment: After successful builds and tests, Jenkins can automate the deployment process to staging or production environments.
Why Jenkins for Continuous Testing
Open Source and Free: Being open-source, Jenkins is free to use and has a large, active community that provides support, plugins, and resources.
Platform Independence: Jenkins runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, and macOS), making it suitable for diverse development environments.
Ease of Use: While initial setup might require some technical knowledge, Jenkins offers a user-friendly web interface for managing jobs and pipelines. With its vibrant community, there are plenty of resources and tutorials available to help you get started.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery: Jenkins is an extensible automation server that can be used to run any project's continuous delivery pipeline in addition to serving as a basic CI server.
Accelerated software release cycles: Jenkins can help teams release software more frequently by automating the build and deployment process.
2. Appium
Appium is an open-source test automation framework designed for mobile app testing. It allows you to automate tests across various platforms, including Android, iOS, and even web views within native apps. Appium leverages the WebDriver protocol, similar to Selenium for web automation, to interact with mobile apps.
Why Appium for Continuous Testing
Flexibility and Platform Support: Appium's WebDriver protocol allows it to interact with various mobile app technologies (native, hybrid, webview) and supports different platforms (Android, iOS).
Use of the common API across all platforms: Appium works with your app using standard mechanisms (APIs) already built into the mobile platforms (Android and iOS). This allows Appium to interact with your app without requiring code modifications, making testing more efficient and less disruptive.
Scripting Language Freedom: Tests can be written in various programming languages like Java, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, etc., allowing developers and testers to choose their preferred language.
Integration with CI/CD Tools: Appium integrates smoothly with popular CI/CD tools like Jenkins, enabling seamless execution of automated tests within your CT pipeline.
3. Test Evolve
Test Evolve is a continuous automated testing framework with real time cloud test reporting dashboards. It provides support for desktop, mobile and api test automation with tests written in Ruby, JavaScript, TypeScript or Python.
Spark: Test Evolve Spark is the engine where tests for different application types are written and maintained in the language of your choice. You can write functional, accessibility, lighthouse and visual tests or a combination of all. It also has out of the box integrations to Browserstack, Sauce Labs, Kobiton, Applitools, TestRail, Percy and Perfecto Mobile.
Flare: This is the cross OS studio application offering a quick code gen test recorder for web app testing as well as local test configuration, execution and results display. Flare also enables you to save your preferred runtime configurations for quick and effective test running.
Halo: Halo is a one-stop shop for all of your test reporting. It displays real time results for automated functional, lighthouse, accessibility and visual testing. With summary level info and fully detailed stack trace displays with failure screenshots and powerful analytic insights, failing tests can be diagnosed quickly and bugs can be raised via the JIRA integration. Manual and automated test run approval in conjunction with support for ‘releases’ means you can keep in step with your team’s release management program and report quickly and accurately.
Integration with CI/CD Pipelines (Flare): It integrates with popular CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, Azure DevOps and Github Actions. This allows automated test execution as part of the development pipeline, providing feedback after every code commit.
Early and frequent feedback: Tests are run frequently, ideally after every code change, providing rapid feedback on potential issues through shareable dashboard views in real time.
4. Selenium
Selenium is a free, open-source suite of tools used for automating web browser interactions. It allows you to write scripts that control a web browser programmatically. These scripts can simulate user actions like clicking buttons, filling out forms, and verifying content on a webpage.
Selenium has a number of tools that can be used for different purposes. The list of main components is detailed below:
Components of Selenium:
Selenium WebDriver: This is the core component that allows you to control a web browser through code. Different bindings are available for various programming languages (Java, Python, C#, etc.).
Selenium IDE: A browser extension for recording and replaying user interactions on a web page. It can be a helpful starting point for beginners but has limited capabilities for complex testing scenarios.
Selenium Grid: This enables you to run tests in parallel on multiple machines, significantly reducing test execution time for large test suites.
Why Selenium for Continuous Testing
Automates Repetitive Tasks: Selenium automates repetitive tasks such as regression testing, saving testers significant time and effort. They can focus on more complex testing scenarios.
Enables Cross-Browser Testing: It supports testing across various web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.). This helps ensure consistent functionality across different platforms.
Wide Programming Language Support: Selenium offers bindings for various programming languages (Java, Python, C#, etc.), allowing developers and testers to choose their preferred language for writing test scripts.
Accessible as Open Source: Because of its open-source status, Selenium is free to use, and it has a large, active community that provides extensive support, libraries, and resources.
5. GitLab CI
GitLab CI is a built-in continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) tool within the GitLab platform. It allows developers and testers to automate the software development lifecycle (SDLC), particularly focusing on:
Building code: Automatically builds your code after every commit or upon specific triggers, ensuring code compiles and runs correctly.
Running tests: Integrates with various testing frameworks to execute automated tests on your codebase, identifying potential issues early.
Deployment: Automates the process of deploying your application to different environments (development, testing, and production) based on predefined configurations.
Why GitLab CI for Continuous Testing
Automated Test Execution: GitLab CI eliminates the need to manually run tests after every code change. It triggers tests automatically based on commits or merges, providing faster feedback on potential issues.
Improved Test Coverage: By automating tests, developers can run them more frequently, leading to increased test coverage and a more robust testing process.
Faster Feedback Loops: With automated builds and tests, GitLab CI enables rapid feedback on code changes, helping developers identify and fix bugs sooner in the development cycle.
Test reporting and monitoring: Provides detailed reports on test results, including success/failure rates, logs, and trends, allowing for easier identification and monitoring of test health.
6. Circle CI
Circle CI is a platform for continuous integration and delivery that runs on the cloud. It helps developers automate the various stages of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This user-friendly platform is specially designed for continuous testing, enabling developers and testers to automate workflows, improve code quality, and accelerate software development.
Why Circle CI for Continuous Testing
Pipeline Automation: CircleCI reduces human error and frees teams to concentrate on innovation by automating pipelines from testing to deployment. It features test metadata, split, scaling, and orbs for efficient build processes.
Customisable workflows: Tailor your testing process within CircleCI pipelines using YAML configuration files to meet specific project requirements.
First Automate, Then Integrate: CircleCI enables you to test your code before automatically merging changes. Testing frameworks and tools like Jest, Mocha, pytest, JUnit, Selenium, XCTest, and others can be integrated.
Integration with Version Control Systems: CircleCI integrates with popular version control systems like GitHub. This means tests will be run any time you push new code, whether by adding new commits to an existing branch or by opening a pull request to merge a new branch into the main branch
Configurability: CircleCI allows you to configure caching, use pre-built Docker images in a variety of languages, and use orbs, reusable packages of configuration, to integrate with third parties.
7. Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source orchestration platform that simplifies the development, testing, and launch of containerised applications. It automates software provisioning procedures and can be integrated with continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) procedures to make software releases faster.
This allows for automation of areas previously managed manually or by external parties, such as detecting outages and increasing server usage. Kubernetes does not directly execute tests but focuses on managing infrastructure and deployment within a microservices architecture.
Separate testing frameworks like JUnit or Selenium are needed for actual test execution. By combining CI/CD tools with Kubernetes, a Kubernetes CI/CD pipeline can be established, using tools like ArgoCD, GoCD, or Ocean CD for continuous delivery and Jenkins X or Gitlab for continuous integration.
Why Kubernetes for Continuous Testing
Efficient Test Environment Provisioning: With Kubernetes, you can easily spin up and tear down test environments on demand. This allows testers to quickly create isolated environments with specific configurations for testing different scenarios.
Continuous development, integration, and deployment: because of the immutability of the image, it allows for frequent, dependable container image builds and deployments with fast, effective rollbacks.
Portability of cloud and operating system distribution: operates on major public clouds, on-premises, RHEL, CoreOS, and Ubuntu, among other platforms.
Flawless Integration with Containerization: Kubernetes easily integrates with containerization technologies such as Docker, providing a strong orchestration framework for controlling and deploying containers in various environments. This streamlines the continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) process and minimises incompatibilities.
8. JMeter
JMeter is a free, open-source Java application for load testing and performance testing. It allows you to simulate a heavy load on a web application, server, or network to assess its performance under stress. JMeter can be used for various testing needs, including:
Load testing: Simulating a large number of concurrent users to identify bottlenecks and ensure your application can handle peak traffic.
Performance testing: Measuring response times, throughput, and other performance metrics to understand how the application behaves under load.
Functional testing: Testing specific functionalities of the application under load conditions.
Why JMeter for Continuous Testing
Seamless Integration: JMeter, teams can interact with APIs, DBs, and applications all within one script. Additionally, JMeter can be integrated with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools through 3rd party Open Source libraries for Maven, Gradle, and Jenkins. This allows you to automate performance testing as part of your CI/CD pipeline.
Cross-platform compatibility: Supports multiple protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, etc.) and functions on Java-compatible operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Ease of Use: While offering advanced functionalities, JMeter has a user-friendly interface and record-and-playback features for creating test scripts.
Proactive Approach: Enables early detection and prevention of performance issues, leading to a more robust and scalable application.
9. Cruise Control
CruiseControl is a Java-based continuous integration tool that allows for customized build processes.
It supports source control and builds technology and notification systems like email and instant messaging.
Its web interface provides details of current and previous builds, and it offers a variety of third-party tools to enhance the standard distribution.
Built on various projects, CruiseControl provides builders for Ant, NAnt, Maven, Phing, Rake, and Xcode, as well as a catch-all exec builder. It is distributed under a BSD-style license.
Why CruiseControl for Continuous Testing
Early Bug Detection: CruiseControl allows early bug detection by testing new code immediately after committing to version control, enabling developers to identify flaws and fix them before they impact the production environment.
Improved code quality: This Java-based CI tool assists developers in maintaining high code quality by regularly testing changes, encouraging them to correct errors and enhance their design when they know their code will be evaluated immediately.
Shortened time to market: It automates software development by ensuring rigorous testing, reducing time to market, and providing programmers with peace of mind before production.
10. Docker
Docker is an open-source platform for developing, deploying, and running applications using containers. Containers are lightweight, portable units of software that include an application's code, runtime environment, libraries, and dependencies.
Docker, being a platform for containerisation, is essential to continuous testing because it makes it possible to set up and maintain isolated testing environments.
Why Docker for Continuous Testing
Consistent Testing Environments: Docker allows you to create isolated and consistent testing environments for different testing scenarios. This ensures tests run in a controlled environment that mimics production as closely as possible, leading to more reliable test results.
Improved Test Portability: Docker containers are self-contained, making tests portable across different environments (development, testing, and production) as long as Docker is installed.
Reproducible Tests: Consistent environments provided by Docker ensure tests are reproducible, meaning they produce the same results consistently across different machines.
