Article

Smartbear vs Browserstack 2023

August 15, 2023

Looking for in-depth comparison between Smartbear and Browserstack for automated testing? Check out our comprehensive guide for 2023 and choose the right tool for you.

Looking for in-depth comparison between Smartbear and Browserstack for automated testing? Check out our comprehensive guide for 2023 and choose the right tool for you.

If you work with APIs as a software developer, tester, or quality assurance professional, chances are you are familiar with Postman and SmartBear. These are two widely used API testing tools that offer a variety of features to help streamline the API testing process. While both tools have their own unique strengths, it is important to understand their differences in order to determine which one is the best fit for your specific project needs.

Let's dive into the comparison!

In the world of software testing, there are many tools and platforms available to help you ensure that your applications are reliable, secure, and performant. Two of the most popular tools for testing web and mobile applications are SmartBear and BrowserStack. Both platforms offer a range of testing solutions and services, but they differ in their features, pricing, and user experience. In this article, we'll take a closer look at SmartBear and BrowserStack, and compare their strengths and weaknesses to help you choose the best testing solution for your needs in 2023.

What is Browserstack

Browserstack logo

BrowserStack is a cloud-based testing platform that provides web and mobile application testing solutions. It allows developers and QA professionals to test their applications across a variety of browsers, devices, and operating systems. With BrowserStack, users can access a wide range of virtual machines and real devices for testing, including the latest versions of popular browsers and mobile devices. The platform also offers integrations with popular testing frameworks like Selenium, Appium, and Espresso, making it easier to incorporate into existing testing workflows.

As of 2021, BrowserStack has over 50,000 customers worldwide, including companies like Microsoft, Twitter, and Airbnb. However, the exact number of users who utilize the platform is not publicly available.

What is Smarbear 

Smartbear logo

SmartBear is recognized for offering robust and user-friendly testing solutions that assist developers and QA experts in producing top-notch software products. Its range of services covers multiple phases of the software development process, such as functional testing, performance testing, API testing, security testing, and service virtualization. Infosys.com reports that SmartBear has a user base of more than six million software professionals and is utilized by over 22,000 organizations across 194 countries.

Mobile or Desktop testing?

SmartBear and BrowserStack provide tools and platforms for both mobile and desktop testing.

SmartBear offers various testing tools that support testing across multiple platforms, including desktop and mobile devices. For example, TestComplete and CrossBrowserTesting support automated testing on desktop and mobile web applications, while ReadyAPI supports testing of APIs across desktop and mobile devices.

BrowserStack also provides a cloud-based testing platform that supports both desktop and mobile testing. Their platform allows users to test web applications and websites on a variety of browsers and operating systems, including both desktop and mobile devices. Additionally, BrowserStack provides a separate mobile app testing platform called App Live that allows users to test native mobile apps on real devices.

Types of Testing Support

Postman testing types include but are not limited to functional testing, integration testing, load testing, security testing, automation testing, regression testing.

  • Functional testing involves testing the functional behavior of the API, ensuring that it returns the expected response for a given request. Postman has a powerful testing framework that enables users to write functional tests using JavaScript.
  • Integration testing checks the integration between different parts of the API and ensures that data is passed correctly between different endpoints. Postman provides an environment where users can test these integrations easily.
  • Load testing involves testing the performance and scalability of the API by simulating a large number of concurrent users or requests. Postman's load testing feature enables users to create and run load tests for their API.
  • Security testing checks the security of the API by detecting vulnerabilities and ensuring that access controls are enforced correctly. Postman provides various tools and integrations for security testing, including running OWASP ZAP scans.
  • Automation testing involves automating API tests to reduce manual effort and increase test coverage. Postman offers automation features such as integrating with Newman for command-line testing and Jenkins and other CI/CD tools.
  • Regression testing is used to test the API after changes have been made to ensure that existing functionality has not been broken. Postman provides features such as version control and collection runs to support regression testing.

BrowserStack has listed on its website up to 13 types including all the testings mentioned above and some more

End-to-end testing is carried out from the viewpoint of a user and encompasses the common workflows that all users undertake when utilizing the product. These tests are performed by testers or quality assurance professionals.

  • GUI or Visual Regression testing aims to verify that the GUI aligns with the business expectations outlined in the Detailed Design Document. This type of testing centers on checking the dimensions of the buttons, input fields, and tables, as well as the alignment of the text and other pertinent content. Additionally, it confirms that the application's menu functions correctly, maintaining consistent alignment while hovering over menu and sub-menu items.
  • Monkey testing involves a tester using an application in a random manner, simulating how a monkey might interact with the software. In this type of testing, random input values are entered without any prior knowledge or understanding of the application. The main goal of monkey testing is to identify whether the application crashes when presented with random inputs. Unlike other types of testing, there are no pre-defined test cases for monkey testing.

Localization possibility 

Both Postman and BrowserStack provide features for localization testing, enabling testing of APIs or applications across different regions and languages.

Postman offers "Global Variables" that allow users to store values specific to different regions and languages, making it convenient to switch between regions and test API behavior for different locales.

On the other hand, BrowserStack enables verification of localized resources such as strings and visuals, data formats, and text inputs within tests. Users can utilize the language and locale capabilities of Appium to set the desired language and locale of the app under test.

Cloud-based or on-premises solutions?

Postman and SmartBear are primarily products that are based in the cloud.

It is not possible to deploy BrowserStack on premises as it requires a significant amount of resources, infrastructure, and maintenance that cannot be replicated in an on-premises environment. However, BrowserStack does provide enterprise-level solutions that can be customized to meet the specific needs of an organization, such as custom domains and dedicated IPs, to ensure secure and seamless testing within a corporate environment.

SmartBear offers on-premises solutions for some of its software testing tools, including TestComplete, its primary functional testing tool, which can be installed directly on a customer's infrastructure. Other tools, such as SoapUI, LoadUI, and ServiceV, can also be licensed and installed on-premises. However, it is worth noting that not all of SmartBear's testing tools are available for on-premises deployment, and availability may differ depending on the specific product or tool.

Integration capabilities: 

Both SmartBear and BrowserStack provide integration capabilities with a wide range of popular testing frameworks, development tools, and CI/CD pipelines. Some of the popular integrations include:

  • Test frameworks - Selenium, Appium, Espresso, XCTest, and more
  • CI/CD - Jenkins, Travis CI, CircleCI, and more
  • Code repositories - GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, and more
  • Bug tracking and project management tools - Jira, Trello, Asana, and more

Cross-Browser Testing 

Both SmartBear and BrowserStack support cross-browser testing, which means that you can record tests in any supported browser and run them using other browsers. 

In its resources SmartBear even provides guides following which you will be able to:

  • Run parallel tests on multiple browsers 
  • Create a single cross-browser testing report 
  • Do it all in a fraction of time required to prepare and run browser-specific tests

Pricing and free trial

SmartBear offers several pricing plans for its 6 products based on the needs of its users. The plans start from $29 month for s single user up to enterprise packages which pricing is discussed individually with their sales team. As to their Percy and App Percy tools, which allow developers to catch visual regressions and UI issues early in the development process, they even offer a free plan with Percy's core features which include unlimited users and 5000 screenshots/month

SmartBear has a diverse pricing model due to big the number of products it offers, but the good news is that it provides a 14-day free trial for all of its tools, and you don't need to provide credit card details to access it. Furthermore, SmartBear has some products, such as SoapUI, that are available in a free version with limited features and functionality, which can still be useful for basic testing needs.

About the author

author photo: Tamas Cser

Tamas Cser

FOUNDER & CTO

Tamas Cser is the founder, CTO, and Chief Evangelist at Functionize, the leading provider of AI-powered test automation. With over 15 years in the software industry, he launched Functionize after experiencing the painstaking bottlenecks with software testing at his previous consulting company. Tamas is a former child violin prodigy turned AI-powered software testing guru. He grew up under a communist regime in Hungary, and after studying the violin at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, toured the world playing violin. He was bitten by the tech bug and decided to shift his talents to coding, eventually starting a consulting company before Functionize. Tamas and his family live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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