Hands-on Review: Katalon Studio – Another Free Solution For Automation Testing

 

Katalon Studio is a powerful automation tool set for web and mobile app testing. It is a free yet feature-packed solution that can be applied to overcome common challenges such as wait-time, pop-up and iframe in web UI test automation.

Katalon Studio brings more intelligence to the entire test automation process; testers can now test better, test faster and launch high quality software through this user-friendly, versatile solution.

Key features of Katalon Studio:

katalon studio

1) Hassle-free deployment: All requisite components are bundled in a single, cohesive deployment package.

2) Quick & easy set-up:Katalon Studio provides simple installation and it’s easy to set up the environment. With its pre-built templates and test scripts, such as object repositories and keyword libraries, testers can run their first test script pretty quickly.

3) Better & faster results: Built-in templates with explicit tutorials help you quickly build and run your automation test scripts. From project set up through test creation, execution, reports viewing and maintenance, testers can perform every step with speed and efficiency.

4) Flexible modes: While novices can use recording and keywords to build automation tests, seasoned testers can leverage a full IDE to automate their advanced scripts.

5) Ease of use:It is as easy as ABC; even manual testers having minimum coding experience can effortlessly avail its benefits.

6) Multi-OS application: Katalon Studio can be seamlessly used on multiple platforms; it supports Windows 32 and 64 (7, 8, and 10) and OS X 10.5+.

 

Download Katalon Studio

 

Hands-on with Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is an insightful, user-friendly automation solution that is characterized byspeed and simplicity.

Katalon Studio is a helpful tool for automation teams and individual testers to spend least efforts from setting up a new project to executing tests and then monitoring execution results. Each workflow provides lots of capabilities and customizations for effortless maintenance and project scale up:

  • Pre-defined structure of test artifacts: test cases, test suites, test objects, reports. You don’t need to spend hours in defining and maintaining them later.
  • Custom keywords provides much flexibility in adding additional keywords to test your AUT efficiently in case of specific and complex testing purposes.
  • Support major testing needs: Web, Mobile and API.
  • Execute multiple test suites at once with test suite collection.
  • Extend current CI flow easily with console mode execution at no efforts. Executing command line can be generated quickly using ‘Generate Command Line for console mode’ feature.
  • Monitor execution results easily with either Table view or Tree view during / after execution.
  • Detailed Test Suite report reducing time in analyzing results. You can export it to different format such as CSV, PDF, HTML and store it for later use.

 

Navigating a linear, streamlined workflow:

Initiate

Intrinsic project templates, Makes life easier for testers by offering built-in templates for organizing test cases, object repository and keywords

Multiple capabilities, Fully supports Web, Android, iOS and API testing on all operating systems

Hassle-free tool merging, Easy to integrate with Jenkins, GIT and JIRA with native plug-ins

 

Create

Automatic test generation, Records actions and generates scripts automatically using built-in keywords

Hi-end scripting, Enables building advanced test scripts or customizable keywords with ease and efficiency

Intuitive object capturing, An advanced recorder detects object properties effectively to maximize recognition

 

Operate

Test execution made powerful, Runs test cases or test suites using multiple configurations and data sets

Versatility in execution, Provides CI integration console with various parameters for remote execution. Runs tests on multiple browsers and OS’s locally or with Soucelabs and Browserstack

On-the-go failure handling and auto re-execution, Includes run-time rules to automatically handle complex execution flows

 

Appraise

Reports available in several formats, with advanced logging, debug data and screenshots

Bespoke execution reports, integrated with your notification workflow

Enhanced Selenium and Appium logs, with improved analysis features to improve automation strategy

 

Maintain

Intelligent test object maintenance, Automatically updates all associated test cases and suites when objects are changed

Efficient test organization, Allows easy management and maintenance of tests, data and keywords

Easy team collaboration, Integrates with GIT to allow team members to easily share artifacts and workload

 

More user-friendly features in Katalon Studio’s latest version 4.5.0

Help links to documentation: Users are provided with context help links to quickly navigate to documentation from corresponding UIs. The quick links are available at multiple locations which includes the following major interfaces:

  • Test Case Editor
  • Test Suite Editor
  • Test Object Editor
  • Test Data Editor
  • Reports
  • Record Dialog
  • Object Spy Dialog

Command Palette: This special context menu, triggered by the Ctrl + Alt + C key combination, displays all useful links so that users can refer to whenever needed.

Submit Issues: This feature saves users the trouble of going to support channels or forum whenever they want to report bugs. Now users can send issues directly from Katalon Studio.

Close Project: This new option lets users close the current project.

Script Mode Improved: Content Assist when scripting, Autocomplete now offers more suggestions when typing for Keywords Libraries, API Class Names and Variable Names to help speeding up scripting routines.

Manual Mode: Improve usability, Use TAB (or Shift+TAB) to navigate to next/previous cells.

Execution: Parallel Execution, userscan now manually start multiple web automation tests on different connected iPhone devices for parallel execution.

Test Suite: Reorganizing Test Suite UI, this added option allows users to expand/collapse the Data Binding section to simplify layout and improve content readability.

Download Katalon Studio

Check out the Release Notes v4.5.0 here

 

Benefits of Katalon Studio compared to Selenium open source framework:

  • Katalon Studio presumes limited technical knowledge on the part of the users. It provides an intuitive, user-friendly UI that shields all technical complexities, making it extremely useful for non-technical testers, especially those who are moving from manual to automated testing.
  • With its engines layered on top of the most popular test automation frameworks viz Selenium and Appium, Katalon Studio facilitates quick creation and execution of test cases; testers don’t have to spend much time on setting up or configuring multiple components like they do with many open-source frameworks.
  • With Selenium, users have to go through technical guidelines for their API and integrate them into with an IDE and a preferred programming language. Katalon, on the other hand, is a unified suite which contains all required components in a single package; all you need to do is to download and install it on your computer and you are ready to get going in no time. To give a simple hardware analogy, it is like plug-and-play.
Katalon Studio compared to Selenium
Katalon Studio compared to Selenium
  • Katalon Studio is released with pre-defined sets of commonly used keywords or actions, whereas Selenium users have to build common and reusable actions on their own.

 

A viable alternative that’s breaking new ground:

Katalon Studio scores fairly well as compared to commercial test automation tools such as UFT & Test Complete in multiple ways. It comes across as a viable, virtually free option to such tools available in the market:

 

Katalon Studio UFT/Test Complete
Needs no licensing & maintenance Cost-prohibitive solution: licensing & maintenance fees are quite high
Free upgrades High fees for upgrades & add-on modules
Cross-platform solution Only Windows based

 

Katalon Studio is gaining widespread acceptance among the testing community. It opens up an easier, faster way to test for automation teams. Endowed with simple deployment, fullfeature set, ease of use and extensive documentation, Katalon Studiov4.5.0 is breaking new ground in the test automation landscape.

13 thoughts on “Hands-on Review: Katalon Studio – Another Free Solution For Automation Testing”

  1. Currently I am working in manual testing and new to Automated Testing. I think this is best tool for me to start automation.

    Please let me know if you have any Katalon studio tool tutorial series, so that it would be helpful for me to start on this..

    Thank you!!!

    Reply
  2. Hi Laxmi here.

    I tried Katalon studio tool to automate Adobe flex application. But unable to identify objects, anyone please help me to identify objects.

    Thanks.

    Reply
  3. Sound great! I have looked around for more information and found out the tool got much more positive feedbacks than negative ones. Let’s check it out.

    Reply
  4. I used this tool few days back, I really liked it. Free and easy to use, less programming knowledge.

    Only one query this is new tool, it would be helpful if you publish any tutorial series around this tool.

    Reply

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