Guide to Mobile App Autotesting Tools
Article Summary
Arseny Batyrov from Badoo's QA team built the mobile testing guide he couldn't find anywhere else. His comprehensive breakdown of autotesting tools reveals which ones actually matter in 2018.
This deep-dive guide classifies mobile app autotesting tools into four categories: drivers, wrappers, frameworks, and combined tools. Batyrov surveyed the QA community and analyzed the most popular tools for iOS and Android testing, from UIAutomator and Espresso to Appium and Calabash.
Key Takeaways
- Appium leads with WebDriver protocol supporting iOS, Android, and desktop platforms
- UIAutomator 2.0 handles system-level testing without source code access
- Espresso requires source code but offers automatic UI synchronization
- Java dominates mobile testing languages, followed by Python and Ruby
- XCUITest replaced UIAutomation for iOS 9.0+ with Objective-C and Swift support
The guide maps the entire mobile autotesting ecosystem with detailed comparisons showing which tools work together and which trade-offs matter for your testing strategy.
About This Article
Arseny Batyrov needed to compare mobile autotesting tools for his QA training courses. He searched multiple websites but couldn't find one resource that covered everything he needed.
Batyrov organized the tools into four categories: drivers, wrappers, frameworks, and combined tools. He then surveyed Russian-speaking QA communities across several platforms to find out which tools were most popular in each group.
The survey showed that Appium and Selenium were the leading WebDriver-based tools. Java appeared in 60% of responses. Android testing was preferred much more than iOS. Cucumber was surprisingly popular even though it belongs in a different tool category.