Using Katalon Studio for Automated Testing Creation
Prologue : Since last year, we've been using several tools for automated testing ( Postman Test Runner, Selenium IDE, Selenium Web Driver etc ) and we've been greeted with problems along the way.
Problems : One of the problem is that we have several tools that we need to manage and/or learn at the same time. We tried to find a simple tool or service that can help us reduce the stack that we need to learn. We can achieve this by using Selenium Web Driver ( + Appium ) but the tooling problem still exists.
Possible Solutions : Enter Katalon Studio.
During our constant effort to find better tools, we stumble upon Katalon Studio. At a glance, this is the tool that we need : API Testing, Mobile App Testing & Website Testing in one place.
I decided to tinker with it for some test cases in our project. My current impression is :
- The IDE is (still) a little bit unstable. Encountered a non-responding state several times.
- Katalon Studio is able to switch between visual / manual view and script view. This means that you have the flexibility to create test case using Katalon Studio built in tools or just dive straight into code. Most cases, I combine both approach to achieve my goal. When switching between manual and script, the code gets reformatted automatically.
- I'm (still) having problems creating test cases for our website using VueJS. I guess this is more of how VueJS (or other SPA framework) generate the frontend part, making it more complex and almost impossible to locate the proper XPath. ( Katalon Studio is using Selenium Web Driver )
- Haven't encounter major problem with mobile app testing. But then again, I haven't create complex test cases. I need to tinker with the code a bit though. I suppose that more complex case will require more direct source code editing ( Katalon Studio is using Appium )
- Testing Web Services requires more code editing. This is partly because the visual tools is still limited but I do enjoy the experience in tinkering the code directly.
- The forum is still small but the discussion is alive. I found some solutions by searching through their forum. That being said, I still can't find some solutions for my problems anywhere. Perhaps a deep dive into their technical documentation is what I need.
If you want to compare their offering with another similar tools, you can read their post https://www.katalon.com/blog/comparison-automated-testing-tools/
Cheerios!