Selenium is open source software for browser automation, primarily used for functional, load, or performance testing of applications.
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Tricentis NeoLoad
Score 9.3 out of 10
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Tricentis NeoLoad is a solution for continuous performance testing software to automate API and application load testing. It was developed by the French company Neotys and acquired by Tricentis, along with the company, in March 2021.
When you have to test the UI and how it behaves when certain actions are performed, you need something that can automate the browsers. This is where Selenium comes to the rescue. If you have to test APIs and not the frontend (UI), I would recommend going with other libraries that support HTTP Requests. Selenium is good only when you have no choice but to run the steps on a browser.
While Tricentis NeoLoad supports SAP GUI protocols, recording and maintaining test scripts for complex SAP transactions (like those in the OTC module) can be cumbersome.
For instance, we had challenges recording a VA01 (Sales Order Creation) transaction because of the dynamic nature of SAP screen fields and session handling. NeoLoad sometimes struggles to properly correlate or handle SAP’s SAPGUI Dynpro fields automatically.
NeoLoad supports performance test engineers with a strong feature set to analyse the results. The first metric you have in mind is response time of the application. The metric satisfies the stakeholder if it meets the requirements. Otherwise, the stakeholder wants to know some comments and suggestions for improvement. I rely on the data gathered by monitoring agents when I analyse test results. The monitoring agent is a service which collects different counters from an operating system, databases, web server, etc. The results can be analysed in individual composed graphs. This is a powerful feature to deliver conclusive reports to stakeholders. Even the export of reports in various formats is helpful for communication with different stakeholders.
Our customers like the flexible license model of NeoLoad. A usual performance test project starts with the development of tests and configuration of the test environment. Finally, there is a first test execution followed by a couple of additional test executions. Usually, it is hard to say how long it takes to implement the issues based on the test results. So we usually do not know how long is the period between first and last test execution. It does not matter how long the period might be. In most of our projects we prefer daily licenses of NeoLoad. If you buy e.g. a four-day license you can use NeoLoad at four different days.
As a performance test engineer, I like the impressive APIs of NeoLoad. NeoLoad is just a performance test tool and the vendor Neotys is focused on this job. Whenever you would like to add something into a test scenario which is not mainly a performance issue you can integrate these parts by APIs which are easy to handle and very powerful. They also support you in case technologies which are not supported yet by NeoLoad. Maybe there is a new device which you want to monitor. Therefore you can report the measurements of the specific counters by the data exchange API during test execution. So you can analyse the data in the usual way. In our company we developed already a couple of features based on the APIs of NeoLoad and we are very happy with this flexibility.
Recognize Adobe Flash and MS Silver Light elements without additional help
Detect and locate Java applets ingredients
Having the "Wait-till-Displayed" or "Wait-till-Present" as a built in Web Driver function instead of requirement for writing loops and defining expliccit wait, visiblewait, invisiblewait, etc.
There is no support for VT3270 terminal emulation to support mainframe-hosted applications.
The ramp-up and ramp-down time data are not automatically excluded from the average response time calculations. Instead, you must exclude these times manually each time you run a test.
There is not a summary graphic that shows the distribution of all of the response times on a single graph. We currently export the data as a coma separated variable (CSV) file and import into Excel to generate this summary graph.
We love this product mainly because of its high customization abilities and the ease of use. Moreover, its free and can be learned easily through online communities and videos. The tests are more consistent and reliable as compared to Manual tests. It has enabled us to test a large number of features all in one go, which would have impossible through manual tests. The reports generated at the end of the tests are really helpful for the QA and the development teams to get a fair view of the application.
We find NeoLoad easy to use compared to their competitors. It requires minimal coding knowledge, also it is easy to train newcomers with NeoLoad. It also offers good integration and automation capability where with less code you can automate your testing process
As I mentioned earlier, the reason I use Selenium is because there is a fairly widespread community of users, and user support services are at a good level. because the application is open source, it works on many platforms (Windows, Linux, IOS) without any problems. In addition, it gives us a lot of options for writing functional tests. For errors that we receive through the application, we can easily find the reasons for errors in the forums.
Selenium does not have technical support available easily. You have to go through forums to get the information you need. However, there are excellent forums out there that make it easy to troubleshoot. The open-source flexibility makes it difficult to have dedicated support.
This is the only area where we strongly feel Tricentis needs to improve. Their support process is inadequate, representatives are not so capable of providing solutions at one shot without consulting their internal engineering teams. Most importantly, the time they take to resolve simple issues is huge and at many times hampered our work.
We did everything we needed to use it. Now we can execute our tests on different operational systems and browsers running few tests simultaneously. We also implemented Appium framework to execute our tests on mobile devices, such as iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets. We use SauceLabs for our test execution and Jenkins for continuous integration.
At the time of adoption, there were not many other alternatives that were even close to being competitive when it comes to browser testing. As far as I know now to this day, there is still little competition to Selenium for what it does. Any other browser-based testing still utilises Selenium to interact with the browser.
Tricentis NeoLoad is easier to use, with simpler steps to follow to record/write test scripts and to design scenarios. It is scalable and comparatively provides overall benefits in a fair cost. Neoload also provides APIs for anyone to leverage and build on top of the existing features. This adds up as an advantage.
Generation of detailed finding reports helped in cost savings in regard to direct labor.
Quality Assurance technicians found value in repeating mundane duties that they perform daily. It saved mental energy due to the automation process.
The value was established in high volume usage in setting up meetings as well as new accounts with A/B testing. Also merely cleaning up old test documents by evaluating them and organization or deletion.
Improved user experience: By identifying and fixing performance issues during testing, Tricentis NeoLoad has helped improve the overall user experience of our applications. This has increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as increased revenue as users are now more likely to use the application or purchase products or services as a result of a better user experience.
Reduced risk of downtime: By identifying and fixing performance issues before they occur in production, Tricentis NeoLoad has helped reduce the risk of downtime. Downtime can be costly in terms of lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction, so reducing the risk of downtime has had a positive impact on overall business objectives.
Cost savings: We have been able to identify and fix performance issues before they occur in production, avoiding the costs associated with downtime, such as lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction.
Faster performance testing: Tricentis NeoLoad has enabled our teams to perform performance testing more quickly by automating the process of simulating user loads and measuring response times, throughput, and error rates.
