End-to-end testing frameworks are a type of software testing tool that helps in validating the entire application from top to bottom. The process of end-to-end automation testing visits all of the pages, calls all of the methods, and validates that everything works as expected. If a page doesn’t work correctly, end-to-end testing can often find and fix it without having to go through any additional steps or code reviews.
This type of testing has become more important in recent years because it allows developers to quickly see how their changes affect the rest of their applications. It also helps them avoid introducing bugs by accident, which can be difficult to figure out using other types of testing.
End-to-end testing often takes longer than unit tests or integration tests because it involves visiting each page and method individually instead of doing smaller tasks in sequence.
It involves:
– Testing the entire application, including all its components and subcomponents, with realistic data
– Using multiple methods of validation, including manual testing and automated tests
– Performing extensive analysis of data collected during testing
End-to-end testing is a process that can be used to test the complete business workflow of an application. It further involves taking the app through a series of steps, starting with the user interface, and ending with the code that makes up the core functionality of the application. The goal of end-to-end testing is to make sure that all parts of the application are working together in harmony and that any errors are isolated to specific components or processes.
Primary Categories of End-to-end testing
There are two primary categories of end-to-end testing. They are:
-Horizontal Testing
-Vertical Testing
What is Horizontal Testing?
In a nutshell, horizontal testing is a way of testing your product in an environment that’s not the real world. It’s conducted in a controlled environment and can be run on many different devices as an alternative to traditional end-to-end tests. Horizontal end-to-end testing focuses on the complete functionality of an application, rather than a subset of it.
It’s important because it allows you to test everything from the smallest details to the largest parts of the application, and it means you can find any bugs much sooner in the development process. Horizontal end-to-end testing refers to a set of tests that are run in a continuous loop, across all of your application’s features. Instead of having one test for each feature, you have one test that runs everywhere. This allows you to gain more insight into your application’s behavior as it evolves over time and provides a more comprehensive view of the system’s entire lifecycle.
The main advantage of horizontal testing is that it allows you to test your product at various points within the life cycle. This means you can test the product from its inception all the way through to production and even customer support. This type of testing helps you identify any issues with your software before they become more widespread or difficult to fix.
It checks the functionality and performance of a product or system across different platforms. It’s done by introducing test cases that are designed to be executed on both iOS and Android devices while using the same API calls. The goal of this type of testing is to make sure that your application works well on all devices, even if they have slightly different hardware specifications.
What is Vertical Testing?
Vertical testing is a way to test your product or service by taking it to the people who need it most. If you want to sell your product in the food industry, for example, you’ll want to test with farmers and those who grow crops. If you’re selling a product for nuclear facilities, you might want to test with workers in those facilities.
The goal of vertical testing is to make sure that your product or service is safe for consumers when they use it. Vertical testing can also help you gain insight into how your customers are using your products—and if they have any problems with them—so that you can improve them quickly without having to wait for long-term studies or trials.
For example, if you’re developing a new product and want to see how it would be received by your target audience, you could perform both usability testing and customer interviews. If you’re creating a new website, you could run tests on different color schemes and layout styles.
In some cases, vertical testing can be done without any other types of testing at all. For example, if you’re creating an ad campaign for a specific type of demographic, it might make sense to test different copy sizes and layouts in order to find out which ones best resonate with them.
The most common forms of vertical testing are Functional, Regression, and Load Testing.
Functional Testing:
This type of testing checks for errors in how the app performs its basic functions like logging in or creating an account. These types of errors can be found by comparing how different users perform the same tasks in different environments such as on an iPhone or PC vs. on an Android smartphone.
Regression Testing:
This type of testing checks for bugs caused by changes made to code between releases by comparing current versions with older ones. For example, if you make a change to your code and then release it, this would be considered regression because it’s not related to any prior release but instead was added recently (i.e., not tested at all).
Load Testing:
In this type of testing, you simulate large amounts of traffic or other activity on your site so that it can determine if any bottlenecks exist which would cause performance issues when under load conditions.
What is an end-to-end testing framework?
An end-to-end testing framework is a software development tool that helps developers and testers to run tests throughout the entire software lifecycle. It’s used in many different areas of software development, including user-centered design, web application development, mobile app development, and more.
End-to-end testing frameworks are often used by companies that have a long history of delivering quality software products and want to ensure they’re constantly improving their processes. This can be achieved through an end-to-end testing framework that provides automated code coverage in all stages of the development process with a focus on high-quality code coverage metrics.
They can be considered testing tools that help you create and run these tests, but they don’t necessarily provide any insight into how your system works or how it will behave in production.
This means that you can run your tests through each individual part of your application, and check for any errors or issues that might occur in those parts. It’s often used in conjunction with unit testing, but it can also be used independently of unit testing.
End-to-end testing frameworks are designed to be flexible so that they can accommodate all sorts of different kinds of applications. They’re also designed to work well with other pieces of software that need to be integrated into the process, such as legacy systems or databases.
Top 4 end-to-end Testing frameworks for 2022
1. Selenium
Selenium is a popular open-source end-to-end testing framework for automated web and mobile testing. It can be used to test any web application, but it’s particularly popular for testing websites, web apps, and mobile apps.
Selenium allows you to write tests in Java or JavaScript. You can also use a command line interface to run your tests from the comfort of your terminal.
Selenium is one of the most popular frameworks available because it comes with a suite of features that make it easy to write tests that cover all common functionality. Selenium also has built-in support for several different programming languages, including Java, C++, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc.
If you’re looking for a way to test your web applications without having to write all those extra lines for every single feature on your site (or create a separate site just for testing), then Selenium might be what you’re looking for!
Selenium allows you to test the behavior of your application across all major browsers and operating systems. It is used by developers to automate web applications, allowing them to test their websites in multiple environments and at any time during development.
Benefits:
- One of the benefits of using Selenium in testing is that it can test across multiple browsers and operating systems, which means you can test your site in all possible environments. Selenium automates browser-based user interactions, so it can perform actions such as filling out forms, clicking buttons, and navigating through your site’s different pages.
- Another benefit is that Selenium allows you to test the functionality of your website without needing an actual user. This means you can make changes to your site without having to wait for a human tester to approve them. With Selenium, you can also write your own tests or use third-party tools like Jest or Jasmine to help with writing code while testing is running. You can even use Selenium’s own JavaScript library if you want more control over how things run during testing.
- Greater accuracy: Selenium is designed to be more accurate than other automated browser testing tools out there. This means that your tests can run faster and with less human intervention.
- Simple integration: Selenium doesn’t require any special setup or configuration—you just need to install it on your machine and start running tests!
- Multiple browsers: Because Selenium supports multiple platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux), you can choose which browser you want to use based on what type of device you’re testing on.
Drawbacks:
- Selenium is not an integrated part of many web browsers, so you will need to download and install it on your computer.
- Selenium runs on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), so you’ll need to have Java installed on your computer. This is not typically required for other types of software testing, but it may be required for Selenium.
- Selenium does not support all Internet Explorer versions, so you will need to make sure that your browser supports Selenium before you begin using it for testing purposes.
- You may need to know about how browsers work in order to use them for testing purposes effectively.
2. Cypress
Cypress is a testing framework that allows you to write tests in Python. It’s part of the Python standard library, but you can use it for any language that supports Python.
Cypress is designed specifically for testing, so it has tools that help you make sure your code is as high-quality as possible. For example, it has tools for finding bugs in your code and tools for mocking out different parts of your application so that you can test them independently from each other (and then compare them).
Cypress also has many built-in libraries for testing databases, web services, user interfaces, and more. For example, the mocks library makes it easy to write tests that assert on values without having access to them directly—you can just check if they exist!
Cypress is easy to use and can improve your app development process by allowing you to test your code against real-world conditions. You’ll be able to see how users will interact with your app as they use it in different environments, which means you can find bugs before they ever get released into the wild!
You should use Cypress for every new feature you add to your app. It will save you time, money, and frustration down the road. Cypress is a rapid web application testing framework that allows you to run and debug tests directly from your browser.
Cypress allows you to do end-to-end testing, covering all the features of your app in one tool. You can also use it as an app inspector to see how users interact with your app at any stage in development. As a modern testing platform for iOS and Android apps, it provides developers with the tools they need for behavior-driven development, test-driven development, and continuous integration.
Benefits:
- Flexibility: Cypress can be used in different types of platforms, from web applications and mobile devices to hardware and embedded systems. This means that you can test your software on any platform that you need to, with the option to create multiple test environments within one application.
- Scalability: Cypress offers scalability through its ability to scale up or down as needed. You can test your website across multiple languages and/or platforms with ease if you are using Cypress in an automated fashion, which means that you don’t have to worry about scaling your environment manually or manually adjusting it when needed.
- Simplicity: Cypress is designed for ease of use so every user will be able to use it without having to spend hours learning how everything works behind the scenes just yet! It could take some time before they feel confident enough with their skillset but once they do then they’ll know exactly what they’re doing without having to think much about it anymore!
- Quicker testing cycles: Cypress speeds up your testing processes by allowing you to run automated tests on multiple devices at once.
- Shortened feedback loops: Cypress allows developers to get instant feedback from their code, so they can fix any bugs before users even notice them! This reduces the time it takes for developers to fix errors and makes them more efficient overall.
- Smaller changes require less effort: The less time you spend making changes and debugging issues, the more time you have for other things like writing new features or improving existing ones!
Drawbacks:
- It can be hard to get started with Cypress because it has so many features and options that you might need to brush up on your JavaScript skills before you dive in.
- The syntax of Cypress tests is a little more complex than what you’d expect from something like Jest—which could be offputting for some people.
- You’ll have to learn new concepts like “rendering” and “state management.”
- There aren’t as many options for transforming your test data, which means you’ll probably have to write more code yourself if you want to make sure your tests are run consistently across browsers or devices.
3. Cucumber
Cucumber is an end-to-end testing framework. It allows you to write tests that describe your application’s functionality and interact with it as you would in production. This makes Cucumber a great choice for testing web applications, but it can also be used for testing other types of applications. Cucumber is a testing framework for the JVM, and it’s been around for a long time. It’s very popular among developers, but sometimes it can be hard to know how to use it. In this post, we’ll cover what cucumber is, how it works, and how you can use it to improve your testing practices.
Cucumber’s most important feature is its ability to run multiple scenarios at once on one machine or across multiple machines. This means that instead of having one script that runs all of your tests, you can have several scripts running simultaneously on different machines.
Cucumber consists of three main parts:
-The “sugar” – The part of Cucumber that you write your test code in. This is what makes up the bulk of your tests and is where all the logic goes!
-The “fixtures” – These are sets of data that are used by each step in your test. You can use plain text files, databases, or any other kind of data source you like!
-The “processors” – These are tasks that help automate parts of the testing process. They’re usually things like running over every page on your site or simulating user interactions with form fields and buttons.
Benefits:
- First, cucumber makes it easy to create features that can be tested independently from other features. This allows you to write tests at any level of granularity, which means your tests can be as small as a single line of code or as large as several hundred lines. It also means you can use the same feature test for multiple features without having to adjust how you write each test. And finally, it allows for more flexibility in how you structure your application, which can help with readability and maintainability.
- Second, cucumber makes it easy to write efficient tests because it provides all of the scaffolding necessary for creating them (such as stubs and mocks). This means that cucumber will allow you to write tests in fewer lines of code than other tools while still retaining the same coverage metrics!
- Finally, cucumber makes it easy to run tests quickly because it uses Selenium WebDriver rather than a custom implementation or native testing frameworks like JUnit or TestNG.It lets you write tests in plain English, without having to code everything yourself. With cucumber, you can describe what your users will do next by writing sentences like “When I click this button, I want to see the login screen.” This makes it easier for everyone involved—including non-technical people who don’t know how to write software—to understand what needs to be tested and how it should be done.
Drawbacks:
- Cucumber is not great at building out the structure of your application. You may find yourself needing to create a lot of small steps or describe things that aren’t really relevant.
- Cucumber can be hard to debug if something goes wrong during testing. The output is usually too verbose for humans to easily read and understand what’s happening in your codebase. This can make debugging difficult if there’s an issue with an edge case or a corner case in your codebase that you weren’t expecting.
- Cucumber has a reputation for being slow when compared to other frameworks like JUnit or Jasmine. While this isn’t always true (you can speed up cucumber by using Gherkin syntax), it does tend to take longer than other frameworks to run all of its features against your code.
- Cucumber doesn’t support asynchronous tests; it requires that all tests be written like they would be on your local machine using synchronous code.
4. WebdriverJS
Webdriver JS is an open-source end-to-end testing framework that lets you automate the testing of websites, and it’s a powerful way to speed up your development process.
Webdriver JS is a JavaScript library that allows you to interact with your web browser in order to test websites. You can use it to test all kinds of functionality: from simple things like whether or not a button is clickable, to more complex tasks like logging into an account on a website and then verifying the details of that account.
Once you’ve set up Webdriver JS, you can start testing whatever kind of application you need. The tool comes with an extensive library of commands that allow you to check for specific errors, perform custom actions on certain pages, and even write scripts in your own language!
Benefits:
- You can easily test your application without having to install a development environment or use any other third-party software like Selenium IDE or Cucumber.
- Webdriver JS tests your application without the need to modify any code. So if there is any change in the code, it will be reflected in your tests. This helps you maintain the integrity of your codebase while testing it.
- You can run multiple tests at once which means that you can run more than one type of test with just one click. This saves time and resources as well as improves productivity.
- You can automate testing so that it becomes easier to do repetitive tasks on your site. This is particularly useful for large-scale sites where it is difficult to keep track of all the different testing scenarios required by the different parts of the site.
- Webdriver JS allows you to test across multiple browsers and operating systems, which means that you can test on multiple versions of IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari at once, without having to run each one individually.
Drawbacks:
- You cannot test complex pages as they might have multiple steps or loops that cannot be executed with this tool.
- You cannot perform any rich interactions like clicking buttons, typing text, etc., as it doesn’t support those actions directly at this stage.
To ensure seamless test flows and avoid the time involved in generating test cases and performing end-to-end tests using the above-mentioned frameworks, shift to a cloud-based cross-browser testing platform like LambdaTest. It supports different test automation frameworks like Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Puppeteer to run web browser tests across 3000+ real browsers, devices, and OS.
