What are your criteria in choosing an automation tool?

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I have the impression that in many companies when they have to choose an automation tool they don’t really have specific criteria, just pick UFT or Selenium by default because they are the most famous tools.

But since we are good QA (isn’t it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ) I think that it’s important to have a proper evaluation grid when choosing a tool.
Let’s suppose that next monday you start a job in a new company starting automation testing from zero, what would you do ?

In my opinion, the main points would be :

  • Analyze the software to be tested (what kind of tests should you automate ? batch ? visual ? just functional ?)
  • What are your programming skills and what is the language used by the developers (for example if it’s JS you could look at Cypress/Webdriver.io)
  • Budget available
  • Security requirements (for example if you can run tests on the cloud)
  • Compatibility with the CI/CD tool of your company
  • Always do a POC

Other ideas ?

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I think your main points cover quite a lot already.

  • With nr 2 I would like to add: ease of use & if it requires some training/coaching from team members.
  • Reporting is also a strong point.
  • If there is a lot of documentation of the tool & support for it, you don’t want to pick something like Protractor which is getting deprecated :smiley:
  • Perhaps integration with other tools, not just CI/CD
  • Is it scale able? Let’s say you get started with it and other teams seem to notice you :wink:
  • Mentality of the team
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As we all know common software testing types such as regression testing, functional testing, unit testing, integration testing, etc., are being replaced with systematic testing programs using automation tools. Today, Test Automation is being considered as the most effective way to enhance coverage, efficiency and effectiveness of any software application. Having said that, the toughest task for any project is to decide whether Test Automation is required or not. If yes, then what apparatus (tools & procedures) should be utilized. As far as we know, following criteria should be there to choose automation tools:

  1. Project requirements and challenges: Automated testing can help improve the quality of a project and increase scope & depth of the tests. For this, one should get a deep understanding of their project requirements and challenges while automation. e.g. these days salesforce qa automation is quite popular but it comes with its own challenges. Its interface offers numerous features and benefits to its users, the underlying software presents several challenges to those wishing to automate it.

  2. Platform supported and tested : This requirement is necessitated by the growing number of platforms day by day. Application developers have the inherent implicit requirement to support the application on all possible platforms which thereby imposes the requirement on testing such an application deployments on all supported platforms.

  3. Test Management and Reporting : Any new automation testing tool should be integrated with existing test management tool so that the whole testing cycle can be managed alongside other available tools. Reporting is another critical factor while choosing an automation test tool. One important aspect is that whether the tool allows customized reporting, what form the data can be exported/imported from the tool.

  4. License Cost : The important thing to take care on this aspect is to balance between the needs and the budget. It might not be as simple as comparing the posted rates on the website. Every license cost is different in terms of the pricing of their products. Some offer monthly rates while some others offer annual.

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Thanks for this interesting information!

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