Modern web testing tools are used for testing the functionality, security, usability, and accessibility of websites and applications. Of late, web testing has evolved to cover connected devices with IoT testing expected to become a $1.3 billion industry by 2021. With open source being the key disruptive factor, we list down top 10 open source web testing tools for 2020 based on key features, use cases and developer adoption that every QA engineer and tester should know.
Table of Contents
2. Selenium
3. The Grinder
4. OpenSTA
5. Gatling
6. Capybara
7. Bugzilla
8. Carina
10. Appium
Apache JMeter
JMeter is the most popular and widely-used open source tool for load testing web applications and analyzing the overall performance of applications under different load types. Based on Java, it simulates heavy loads on groups of servers, and networks to test the performance of applications. Among its principal features is the ability to extract data from HTML, JSON , XML or any textual format and the ability to load tests from Java-compatible operating systems such as Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX.
Who is it for? Available on an Apache license and working at the protocol level, JMeter runs as a desktop application, helping web testers carry out automated functional testing, create test plans using text editors, measure the performance of web applications using graphs and tables, and regression testing applications by creating test scripts with assertions.
Selenium
Selenium is the leading open source tool for automation testing web browsers and applications. Automation testing has become commonplace now as it helps automate repetitive testing tasks and runs test scripts automatically to compare actual performance results of applications with expected results. It saves enormous time and resources in terms of running hundreds of tests and pinpointing the source of errors and bugs. As a standalone open source tool, Selenium lets web testers write test scripts in Ruby, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Perl, Python, C#, and other programming languages which are then run by the Selenium WebDriver automatically.
Who is it for? Selenium is perfect for testers and developers who need to web-test hundreds of websites within a short timeframe. Developers can customize the code to modify predefined functions and classes to add new test parameters as per their requirements. The fact that it is compatible with all major browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera has powered widespread adoption of Selenium by developers worldwide.
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The Grinder
Available on a BSD-style open-source license, The Grinder is a Java-based load testing tool that supports the testing of application servers, web servers, and web services with Java APIs. Test scripts on The Grinder can be written in Jython and Clojure and the tool supports distributed tests using many load injector machines but with centralized script editing and distribution.
Who is it for? The Grinder is best suited for web application testers who prefer using dynamic test scripts to carry out load testing. The latest version of the open source tool supports arbitrary branching and looping, makes test results directly available to the test script, supports multiple protocols, and enables flexible parameterization. The tool has been developed to help testers detect deadlocks and slowdowns in web applications and has the capability to scale up testing across several servers.
OpenSTA
Freely available under the GNU GPL license, OpenSTA is designed for undertaking scripted HTTP and HTTPS heavy load tests with performance measurements from Win32 platforms. The open source tool delivers results and statistics during test runs through a variety of automatic and user controlled mechanisms such as scripted timers, SNMP data, Windows Performance Monitor stats and HTTP results & timings.
Who is it for? OpenSTA is a handy load testing tool for web application testers in that it generates logs that can be viewed, graphed, filtered and exported for use by more sophisticated report generation software. The tool uses the standard record and replay method of web testing tools and stores recordings in simple scripts that can be edited and controlled with a special high level scripting language. QA testers and developers can use OpenSTA to simulate the activity of thousands of users to generate realistic loads and test the performance of web applications on various parameters.
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Gatling
Gatling has gained rapid adoption among web testers worldwide. Developed specifically for DevOps and Continuous Integration processes, Gatling also has an enterprise version used by the likes of Adobe, Deutsche Bank and Chase. The tool helps web developers detect performance issues and errors early in the development cycle, helps them anticipate slow response times and crashes, and gives accurate readings of slow-running processes.
Who is it for? Gatling can help web developers running DevOps and CI/CD programs to simulate millions of users to load-test their web applications and fix performance issues and refine the functionality and accessibility of applications during the development cycle. The tool is particularly handy for e-commerce platforms that have to handle heavy loads during sales windows and can design their applications to prevent unexpected crashes. The tools enterprise version Gatling Frontline, comes with advanced metrics and advanced features for integration and automation for commercial users.
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Capybara
Capybara comes with Rack::Test and Selenium support built-in and helps web developers load-test applications by simulating how a real user would interact with the application. The tool features an intuitive API which mimics the language an actual user would use, lets developers change the backend of tests from fast headless mode to actual browsers, and features powerful synchronization to complete asynchronous processes in quick time without any need for manual intervention.
Who is it for? Capybara has been developed specifically for Rails and Rack applications. Rack is a component that serves as a layer between frameworks (rails) and application servers and helps track slow responses and block unwanted requests. For these applications, Capybara does not need any setup process and its default driver RackTest is written in pure Ruby and interacts directly with Rack interfaces. The downside of this is that RackTest can not be used to test non-Rack applications, remote applications or remote URLs that applications interact with.
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Bugzilla
Bugzilla is among the most popular open source software when it comes to tracking down bugs in web applications. Bugzilla comes with a defect-tracking mechanism to let developers keep track of outstanding bugs, problems, issues, enhancement and other change requests in their products effectively.
Who is it for? Bugzilla was initially developed at mozilla.org and its initial installation was deployed to the public on a mozilla.org server in 1998 before its open source version was released. The software is still being used by Mozilla for high-volume, high-complexity environments for bug detection and an enterprise version is also available for corporate users. Its features include full unicode support, custom fields and workflows, support for multiple database engines, multiple authentication methods, and extension mechanism for highly customizable installations.
Carina
Carina is a widely-used test automation framework that is built on top of the most popular open-source solutions like Selenium, Appium, and TestNG, thereby reducing the dependence of developers and web testers on a specific technology stack. The load testing tool supports different types of databases – both relational and nonrelational such as MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL and supports all popular browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Firefox as well as both Android and iOS operating systems. The best feature of Carina is that it unites all testing layers, namely Mobile applications (web, native, hybrid), WEB applications, REST services, and Databases.
Who is it for? By including the best features of popular open-source solutions, Carina helps developers save time on testing applications by reusing test automation code between IOS/Android up to 70-80%. Once developers install JDK 8, they can use Carina to execute tests both on Unix or Windows OS. An API testing algorithm based on a Freemarker template engine also offers much flexibility in generating REST requests, and responses are dynamically changed by incoming arguments.
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Selenium WebDriver
This web automation framework, also known as Selenium WebDriver, offers more testing options to web testers compared to the original Selenium automation testing tool. WebDriver supports several programming languages, such as Java, .Net, PHP, Python, Perl and Ruby and enables developers to execute tests against many browsers, including Opera, Firefox, Chrome,vSafari, Internet Explorer, and GhostDriver. WebDriver also controls the browser from the OS level, thereby increasing the speed of operations.
Who is it for? Selenium WebDriver has been enjoying massive adoption by developers as it was developed to make automation testing less complex and more user-friendly compared to Selenium. Aside from supporting a number of programming languages, operating systems, and modern browsers, it also executes test scripts faster than Selenium, features a more concise API, and is compatible with iPhone Driver, HtmlUnitDriver and AndroidDriver.
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Appium
An open source test automation framework for use with native, hybrid and mobile web applications, Appium drives iOS, Android, and Windows apps using the WebDriver protocol. Being a cross-platform testing tool, it allows developers to write tests against multiple platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows using the same API and is written in Node.js. The tool also comes with client libraries in Java, Ruby, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and C#, giving developers the option to use any of these instead of the regular WebDriver client.
Who is it for? Appiums design philosophy is incredibly developer-friendly. The tool lets developers conduct automation testing without having to recompile apps or modify them to automate them. The tool also gives developers the option of choosing from several programming languages and frameworks to run tests, and is completely open-source to let developers from all over the world test their mobile applications using the framework.
Closing Thoughts
The rise of automation testing has made web testing incredibly seamless, time-saving, and efficient. Most modern web testing tools now feature a comprehensive set of capabilities and go beyond finding bugs or conducting limited simulations. With IoT testing and Big Data testing posing new challenges for QA testers, the use of deep learning and machine learning algorithms for testing is also set to grow over the next few years.
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