Cypress Alternatives

Several Quality Analysts (QA) and their teams go with Cypress.io when it comes to creating automated software tests. This is because this tool helps execute tests directly inside a browser, thus, solving some of the most irritating timing issues. 

However, regardless of the advantages, Cypress also has a few downsides. For instance:

• It can be used only by somebody who is familiar with JavaScript, which makes it expensive to scale up testing
• Tests with Cypress can be extremely time-consuming to set up
• These tests are restricted to performing actions in a single browser, meaning important functions of certain applications can go untested

This eventually compels people to look for Cypress alternatives instead of going with this tool. If you are also one from the lot, this post covers some of the best Cypress alternatives that you can try. So, without further ado, let’s have a look at these options.

Cypress Alternatives - Table of Contents

Rainforest QA Katalon Testim.io WebdriverIO Protractor Autify Ghost Inspector Jest Puppeteer Mocha

Top Cypress Alternatives

Jotted down below are some top and latest Cypress alternatives to try:

1. Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA is one codeless functional testing tool that generally uses a drag-and-drop editor to create interactive tests. These tests easily communicate with the visual layer of your application in the way a real user would. Plus, anybody can write and maintain tests in this tool without adding any custom attributes. 

To test the visual layer, this tool uses pixel-matching to discover and interact with elements on the UI. You will not have to worry about locators or adding any custom attributes.

Features of Rainforest QA

• An option to embed a test in other tests to speed up maintenance and writing
• Can run tests on older and current versions of four major browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Safari
• Tests can include actions outside of a browser window or a browser tab
• Tests are less affected by minor changes in the code
• Fast and easy to investigate test failures with video replays

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2. Katalon

This tool is built on Appium and Selenium and is designed to be used by both non-developers and developers for mobile app testing and web testing. You can find a record-and-playback feature in this tool that lets non-developers create test scripts with ease. And then, being a developer, you can stop and restart the recording at any point during the creation or execution of a test. 

This way, you can create complicated test cases and fix broken tests as well. Katalon also has a free version. However, it is only for those who wish to use this software on simple platforms.

Features of Katalon

• Run a test and know if it failed or not
• IDE that lets you generate automatic tests
• Easy set up for on-demand testing
• Advanced and intuitive debugger
• Fast scripting with keyword-driven testing

3. Testim.io

Testim.io is one such tool that uses a Chrome extension to record varying steps for basic tests. If you wish to create complicated tests, you will have to insert custom code in JavaScript. This tool was specially built to be used with several other tools, like Sauce Labs, BrowserStack, Applitools, GitHub, and TestRail.

However, one of the things to keep in mind is that when you use Testim.io, you will not get any support for iPad, Android or iPhone platforms.

Features of Testim.io

• Run between two and eight concurrent tests
• AI-powered, self-improving stabilizers
• Quick diagnosis and troubleshooting
• Effective expansion of testing operations with controls
• Scalable, fast running of tests

4. WebdriverIO

WebdriverIO is an end-to-end, open-source testing framework that is built on JavaScript. It also runs on NodeJS. Moreover, this software is capable of testing applications that are built on web frameworks, such as Polymer, Angular or React.

You can easily configure WebdriverIO if you want cross-browser testing to run on the WebDriver Protocol. Or, if you want automation through Puppeteer, you can run this software on Chrome DevTool Protocol.

Features of WebdriverIO

• Supports native mobile application testing for iOS and Android
• Offers several third-party plugins
• Create test automation frameworks that meet all requirements
• Add complicated sets and helpful functions to extend the features
• Supports modem mobile frameworks and web frameworks

5. Protractor

Protractor is another end-to-end testing framework that is developed on top of WebDriverJS. Since tests and applications developed with JavaScript can be quite lengthy and complicated, this software is designed to ease out the element locator syntax with ElementFinder feature.

This ElementFinder feature offers condensed code to discover and interact with a variety of elements.

Features of Protractor

• Supports behaviour driven development
• Allows integration of Mocha and Jasmine
• Adequate for Angular and AngularJS applications
• Uses browser-specific drivers and native events to test
• Automatically executes the subsequent steps in the test

6. Autify

Autify is one of the best Cypress alternatives. It is powered by AI codeless test automation. The software is extremely easy to use and doesn’t require any coding or knowledge of programming language to create test scripts. 

So, even if you are from a non-engineering background, you can still create scripts without any extensive training. You can easily run and record regression tests. And then, with the algorithm of this software, you can find UI changes, continue test scenarios, and do much more.

Features of Autify

• A no-code platform
• Makes use of GUI to record test scenarios and play back
• AI maintains the test scripts
• Cross-browser compatibility, including mobile devices
• Can be integrated with Jenkins, Slack, and more

7. Ghost Inspector

Ghost Inspector lets you automate tests for browsers, websites, e2e testing and user interfaces. It is a bit similar to Selenium IDE, however, it offers a streamlined test recorder tool for Firefox and Chrome. 

Keeping the technology in mind, even this tool is powered by artificial intelligence. Hence, you can completely automate the codeless tests.

Features of Ghost Inspector

• An option to record, schedule and automate tests
• Supports several browsers
• Compatible with plenty of technologies
• Get to compare updates simultaneously
• Easy to use software

8. Jest

Jest is one of the best JavaScript testing framework tools focused on simplicity. This tool can work with various projects, including those that use Vue, Angular, React, Node, TypeScript, Babel, and more.

Majorly, this tool aims to work out of the box; thus, it lets you relish a configuration-free process on most of the JavaScript projects. 

Features of Jest

• Create tests to track large objects effortlessly
• Parallelized tests that maximize performance
• Great API that has been maintained well
• Fast and safe test creation
• An option to generate code coverage

9. Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library that can offer high-level API to control Chromium or Chrome over DevTools Protocol. This one runs headless by default. However, it can easily be configured to run full Chromium or Chrome. 

Through this tool, you can effortlessly test a variety of chrome extensions. Not just that, you can also capture a timeline trace of the website to diagnose performance problems.

Features of Puppeteer

• Create an updated, automated testing environment
• Run tests directly in Chrome through JavaScript and other browser features
• Get to automate keyboard input, UI testing, form submission, and more
• An option to crawl a Single-Page Application
• Generate PDFs and screenshots of pages

10. Mocha

This one is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework that runs on Node.js as well as in the browser. With this tool, you can make asynchronous testing quite fun and simple. Mocha tests generally run serially.

This way, they allow accurate and flexible reporting. This tool can also map uncaught exceptions to correct and simplify test cases.

Features of Mocha

• Offers support for varying assertion libraries
• Get to write tests with Behaviour Driven Development (BDD)
• Can run in both the browser and Node.js
• Makes asynchronous testing extremely effortless
• JavaScript API available for test running

Wrapping Up

Sure, Cypress has a variety of benefits to offer. However, when you cannot get the most out of it, refer to these Cypress alternatives listed above. With these tools and software, you can maintain and write automated UI tests, even if you are not adept at programming. So, dive deeper, get to know more about these tools, find their useful features, and see which would suit your requirements best. After thorough research, make your decision cautiously.