We use BrowserStack mainly to run our Playwright-based web UI automation tests written in TypeScript. It helps us validate our app on multiple browsers and OS versions without needing to set up any local infrastructure.
Our tests are integrated with CI, so whenever someone raises a PR, the Playwright scripts run on BrowserStack's cloud grid. This gives us quick feedback on any browser-specific issues. Earlier we used to test only on Chrome locally, but now we cover Safari, Edge, and Firefox too and this really improved our overall test coverage and reduced production issues.
Pros
Makes cross-browser testing easy and reliable
Allows testing on real devices without physical setup
Cons
Debugging dynamic content sometimes tricky
Test sessions can be slow in the starting
Likelihood to Recommend
BrowserStack works really well when you need to test your web app across multiple browsers and devices, especially during regression or before a release. We use it a lot for Playwright automation in CI, also we run our automation script every time new we push new changes in the production environment.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering (Retail company, 1001-5000 employees)
Since we had to work from home during corona and no longer had access to our mobile devices, we started looking for online testing tools and that's where we came across BrowserStack, which allowed 23 scrum teams to easily perform visual browser and mobile browser testing.
Pros
Visual Browser testing
Visual mobile app browser testing
No need to purchase mobile devices
Cons
The licence model is user based
for app testing the latest beta versions are not available
for large environments companys the licence is a bit difficult
Likelihood to Recommend
during corona period we couldn't work from office to use our mobile test devices. there we discovered from necessity BrowserStack, BrowserStack is the tool to use this. It saves us money and time, because we no longer need to buy new mobile devices and the scrum teams have better choices to test their applications
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Quality Assurance (Retail company, 1001-5000 employees)
The mobile app that allows the users to interact with their eBike's eSystem relies on BrowserStack tests to test the login & signup features. We cannot simulate or actually make a Bluetooth connection to an eBike using BrowserStack devices, which limits our scope to all the UI features prior to that step of onboarding.
Pros
Appium test execution
Integrations with multiple test frameworks and languages
Device-level logging
Network logging
Interactive debugging
Cons
Provide support for IoT use cases like Bluetooth Low Energy connection simulation
Rent space for proprietary hardware so IoT companies can expand their use of BrowserStack
Rent out your devices to companies that require a test to be run on-site
Likelihood to Recommend
Tests that do not interact with hardware or firmware and are exclusively cloud-based are excellent for BrowserStack testing. I'm not able to use BrowserStack for tests that rely on a Bluetooth connection to a separate piece of hardware, so I have to rely on a framework like Katalon that can give me a local Appium bridge to run tests on a tethered device. If BrowserStack can provide a SaaS solution to this problem, it would be a more attractive option to emerging IoT test automation needs.
