To keep pace with a rapidly evolving industry ecosystem, application delivery times must be accelerated and must not come at the expense of quality. It is very important to achieve the goal of quality in a shorter time, so quality assurance attracts much attention. To meet the demand for superior quality and faster iteration, more and more organizations are introducing automation and prioritizing automated testing. Agile development model makes it more and more necessary to automate the test process, but the most critical aspect is to choose the right test automation framework.

What is a test automation framework

A test automation framework is an infrastructure that provides an execution environment for automated test cases or scripts. Automated test frameworks provide users with a variety of benefits to help them effectively develop, execute, and report automated test cases. An automated testing framework is more like a system created specifically for automated testing. In a very simple language, it can be said that the framework is a great convergence of coding standards, testing procedures, working practices, project hierarchies, modularity, reporting mechanisms, test data injection, and other features that support automated testing.

The benefits of an automated testing framework are manifold, such as ease of scripting support, scalability, modularity, ease of understanding, reusability, cost, maintenance, etc. Therefore, to reap these benefits, test engineers are advised to use one or more of the following test automation frameworks. In addition, a single standard test automation framework is needed when many testers work on different modules of the same application, and when we want to avoid an automated approach where everyone implements some of the same functionality.

Types of automated test frameworks

Now that we have a basic understanding of automation frameworks, let’s take a look at the various types of test automation frameworks that are popular today. These frameworks may differ from one another based on support for automation of different key factors such as driver type, reusability, ease of maintenance, and so on.

Types of test automation frameworks:

  • Module-based testing framework
  • Warehouse architecture testing framework
  • Data driven testing framework
  • Keywords drive the test framework
  • Hybrid testing framework
  • Behavior-driven development frameworks

Benefits of a test automation framework

In addition to the minimal manual intervention required to automate tests, implementing a test automation framework has many advantages. Here are some of them:

  • Faster time to market: Using a good test automation framework can help reduce the time to market of your application by continuously executing test cases. Once automated, test cases can be executed faster and run longer than manual tests.
  • Find bugs earlier: Test teams can easily document software bugs. It improves overall development speed while ensuring correct functionality across modules. The earlier a BUG is found, the cheaper it is to fix.
  • Improve test efficiency: Testing takes up a large part of the development life cycle. Even the slightest improvement in overall efficiency can have a huge impact on the overall time horizon of a project. Although the initial setup time will be longer, automated testing will ultimately take less time. They can operate almost unattended, allowing the results to be monitored at the end of the process.
  • Higher ROI: While the initial investment may be higher, automated testing can save organizations a lot of money. This is due to the reduced time required to run tests, which results in higher work quality. This, in turn, reduces the need to fix burrs after release, thereby reducing project costs.
  • Higher test coverage: In test automation, more tests can be performed that are application-specific. This results in higher test coverage, which in a manual test approach would mean large teams with very limited working hours. Improved test coverage results in testing more features and higher quality applications.
  • Reusability of automated tests: The repeatability of test cases in test automation helps software developers assess program responses in addition to Settings that are relatively easy to configure. Automated test cases can be reused, so they can be exploited in different ways.

Popular test automation frameworks

Robot Framework

If you want to use the Python test automation Framework for test automation, the Robot Framework is the best choice. The Robot Framework is Python based, but scripting use cases can also be written using Jython (Java) or IronPython (.NET) languages. The Robot Framework uses a keyword-driven approach to make test cases easy to create. The Robot Framework can also test MongoDB, FTP, Android, Appium, and more. It has a number of test libraries, including the Selenium WebDriver library and other commonly used tools. The Robot Framework has a number of apis to help make it as extensible as possible. The keyword approach used by the Robot Framework is ideal for testers already familiar with other testing frameworks, and testers of keyword-driven testing tools make the transition to the Robot Framework testing Framework easier.

WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO is an automated testing framework based on Node.js. It has an integrated test runner that can run automated test cases for Web applications as well as native mobile apps. Also, WebdriverIO can run on both the WebDriver and Chrome Devtools protocols, making it very effective for cross-browser testing based on Selenium WebDriver or for Chromium-based automation. Because WebDriverIO is open source, test engineers have access to a bunch of plug-ins that meet their automation needs.

Citrus

Citrus is an open source testing framework that testers can use to automate integration testing for any messaging protocol or data format. Citrus test framework is suitable for testing messaging integration for any messaging transport such as REST, HTTP, SOAP, or JMS. Citrus can be integrated with Selenium if you need to interact with the user interface and validate the back-end processes. For example, if the send email button must be clicked and the backend confirms that the email has been received, Citrus can receive the email or A UI-triggered JMS communication and verify the backend results, all in one test case.

Cypress

Cypress is a developer-centric test automation framework that makes TDD test-driven development a reality for developers. It is designed to be very easy to package and bundle everything together for end-to-end testing. Cypress has a different architecture than Selenium. Selenium WebDriver runs remotely outside the browser, while Cypress runs internally. This approach helps you understand everything that is happening inside and outside the browser to provide more consistent test results. When the tester pulls the application into the browser, Cypress synchronously notifies the user of everything happening inside the browser, so that the test can access each element natively. This also makes it easy to sequence debugging functionality, making it easier for the using developer to package and validate functionality.

Selenium

One of the most popular open source test automation frameworks for Web applications. Selenium has cross-platform and cross-browser capabilities, and it can be used as the basis for many other testing tools. Selenium supports many programming languages, such as Java, C#, PHP, Python, Ruby, etc. It has one of the largest online communities and is therefore easier to maintain. Selenium can be highly extensible with a wide range of libraries and apis to meet the needs of every team. Selenium is the testing framework of choice for testers because more advanced test scripts can be written to meet varying levels of complexity. It provides playback tools for testing authoring without having to learn a specific scripting language.

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Cucumber

Cucumber is a cross-platform behavior-driven development BDD tool for writing acceptance tests for Web applications. Cucumber is quick and easy to set up executants and allows code reuse during testing. It supports Python, PHP, Perl,.NET, Scala, Groovy, and more. Easy to read and understand format for functional validation automation. Another cool feature of Cucumber is that both specifications and documentation are uploaded to an up to date document library so that people unfamiliar with the business can quickly learn about the business. When test reports are written in a business-readable format, script code can be easily read by all.

Gauge

Gauge is an open source test automation framework for Mac, Linux, and Windows. People working on TDD and BDD patterns will see the advantage of Gauge in creating effective/executable documents. Specification: the specification automation tests are written in existing ides such as Visual Studio, Eclipse, and the Intellij IDE using the Markdown language, C#, Java, and Ruby. Gauge can also be extended with support for its plug-ins, which were developed as the *BYOT (built-in tools) * framework. Therefore, testers can use Selenium or anything else to drive UI testing or API testing. If your team wants a readable, non-BDD automation approach, try using Gauge.

Carina

Carina is built using popular open source solutions such as Appium, TestNG, and Selenium to reduce dependence on a specific technology stack. Testers can test apps (native apps, hybrid apps, WebApps), WEB applications, REST services, and databases. Carina framework supports different types of databases such as MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, thus providing a perfect experience for implementing the DAO layer with MyBatis ORM framework. Carina supports all popular browsers and mobile devices, and reuses up to 80% of the test automation code between IOS and Android. API testing is based on the Freemarker template engine, which provides great flexibility in generating REST requests. Carina is cross-platform and makes it easy to run test cases on Unix or Windows OS.

FunTester

This article lists some of the mature, popular best testing tools and frameworks to address the challenges organizations now face to achieve fast delivery. The list also includes providing UI testing or API testing tools and testing frameworks, which are critical to how automated testing is introduced in DevOps. Choosing the right automated test tool should not only meet your team’s current needs, but also focus on potential trends and improvements.

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