What are the differences between Katalon vs TestProject?

“Katalon vs TestProject” is one of the most result keywords that came up when you search for test automation review. These two tools have been getting popular among the test automation community in the last three years. Many beginners and professionals are utilizing them for personal needs and within their enterprise organizations.

Wondering which one is the best to go with at this point, with your particular testing needs? This article will provide you with a detailed comparison between Katalon vs TestProject to see what you can make out of each tool. 

Katalon vs TestProject Introduction 

Katalon and TestProject are some of the most recognized automation frameworks, which have changed the way applications have been tested. With Katalon and TestProject’s help, the tester no longer has to write script entirely from scratch but still can test faster and earlier in the software development life cycle. 

Even though there are many similarities among these two tools, if you spend time evaluating each application, you will quickly find the pros and cons of each of them. 

Let’s dive into details below. 

TestProject Focused Overview 

What is TestProject?

TestProject first launched in 2015 in Israel as a free end-to-end test automation framework for Web, Mobile, and API. The tool is a completed flatform that is built on top of Selenium and Appium open source.

Besides the record and playback function, TestProject also provides test execution capabilities with CICD integration and report features. TestProject new users can use this feature to generate script codeless and re-play as a newbie to automation testing. The platform can also integrate with many CICD frameworks, which helps TestProject’s testers participate in the DevOps flow seamlessly.

It is necessary to mention that, as being a free tool, TestProject is quite open. It utilizes many community add-ons to expand its core capabilities beyond the built-in functions, which means that TestProject users can create their add-ons and contribute those to the community to share and use on their own.

TestProject – Pros

1. Free Of Charge

The majority of TestProject capabilities are within the free version. TestProject commits to being a free forever solution, which is a nice gesture of giving back to the automation testing community.

2. Supported multiple scripting languages and operation systems

Both Java, C Java, C#, and Python are supported within TestProject. This helps users script in their preferred languages and is particularly convenient for the developer team to participate in the testing cycle and kick off their testing journey reasonably quickly.

The platform is currently compatible with both macOS, Windows, and Linux machines. 

3. Comprehensive tools for basic needs

TestProjects currently provides a solution for both Web UI, API, and Mobile testing. To help this process easier, its user can also integrate with Sauce Labs and BrowserStack fairly easily. 

Test execution from CLI into CICD pipelines such as Jenkin and Azure DevOps can also be archived with TestProject. 

TestProject – Cons

1. Lack of official Support Channels for professionals and Training sources for beginners

TestProject users can certainly browse for help in the Community forum. Or you can leave them a message directly on their website. However, this level of support would not work for all teams. 

There is currently no committed and dedicated support to TestProject users. This may not be a big issue for automation experts, but it would definitely be a valid concern for businesses that would like to ensure no technical testing issue would potentially block your development process. 

Another downside is that TestProjects provides no training source besides their online documentation. The effort of training new team members while scaling up teams would be on you unless experts are hired, which create additional labor cost on your budget.  

2. Security compliance concerns 

User cannot fully control test artifacts within your private environment.

TestProject is a web-based application, meaning that you would need an internet connection at all times. Therefore, if your company requires testers to work within your test lap using intranet only, TestProject would not be able to fulfill this compliance.

In other words, using TestProject web-based application meaning that your test artifacts would be store within their cloud of TestProject. Your team would not have complete control over your test data nor the option to test within your private environment. 

3. Limited capabilities within the core functions

It is nearly impossible to find a platform that can be 100% comprehensive in all cases, TestProject is a great tool, but it still has its all limitations. 

As browsing through reviews of TestProject users, and TestProjects docs, you can quickly jump into a few outstanding mentioned limitations such as:

• API testing capability: API testing is supported within TestProject. However, it is limited to Restful testing only. If the team wants to perform SOAP testing or another API testing, it is currently impossible to archive with TestProject. 

• Parallel execution restriction: When this article is released, TestProject states that concurrent execution is not an option for Virtual Agents, their maximum worker is always one only. 

• Integration limitation: For a free tool, TestProject can integrate with several third-party tools. However, Jira, Oracle SQL, Appitools, Bamboo, AWS CodeBuild, TravisCI CICD … are widely used frameworks that TestProject is currently not working with.

• Lack comprehensive report and analytic: A pre-defined report is available within TestProject, it is helpful to give the user a high-level overview of the testing workflow, but it may not be the most comprehensive one. 

For a business organization, it is crucial for management level, team lead, or even users themself be able to follow their testing effort and its results. Lack of data-driven reports could be a challenging blocker to archive a productive collaboration among team members. 

Katalon Focused Overview 

What is Katalon?

Katalon is an intuitive but comprehensive functional automated testing framework. It simplifies your test flow from test creation with Katalon Studio Enterprise, test execution with Katalon Runtime Engine to reporting with Katalon TestOps. Testers use the tool at all skill levels to generate and execute automated Web UI, API, Mobile, and even Desktop testing projects. Its test recording and smart healing function allow users to quickly record and reuse test action against elements while significantly reducing dependence on traditional scripting efforts.

Ultimately, wherever you are at the early stage of the automation transition or being an automation expert, the platform helps increase productivity in the test automation space with a reasonable investment for higher ROI.

Katalon’s Pros

1. A secured application that compliance with your internal policy

A lot of Medium size and Enterprise Businesses opt for Katalon Studio Enterprise license due to its security compliance. The flatform can benefit any workflow and fit in all environments.

Katalon Studio Enterprise is simply a Desktop application. Therefore, all of your test artifacts would be store locally within your host machine. You can share projects locally among the team members using the export-import function of Katalon or simply do it via Git.

The only things Katalon stored within Katalon licensing server are basic info about your accounts with Katalon to validate your license at use. If the organization is rigorous and requires the tester to work entirely in a black box, the on-prem licensing server is provided. One thing to note is that this On-prem licensing server is not publicly offered to everyone. You can contact me here to get free consulting on this.

In short, whether the team is using fixed servers, offline servers, or considering moving forward to work on the cloud, Katalon has various license packages suitable for each particular requirement.

2. Extensive features that everyone can use

Katalon is designed to replace Selenium, and Appium by adding a better UI running those powerful core engines. The application is packaged with many helpful capabilities for seamless end-to-end testing, including data-driven testing, cross-browser testing in different environments.

With a traditional automation testing solution, you must spend a whole day designing a flawless script, which is not possible for testers at all levels. The same can be archived within Katalon Studio Enterprise in just a few hours or even a few minutes by anyone.

Finally, there are multiple layers of Support within Katalon. You can the question in Forum, contact your Katalon Account Manager, or submit a technical ticket at the Help Desk and get a response within a few hours to a maximum of 48hrs.

Thus, Katalon beginners can now make use of their newly launched free training channels and several webinars during the months.

3. Straight forward integration with DevOps tools

Working with various DevOps platforms such as Jira, Appitools, Browserstack, Azure DevOps, Jenkin… is one of Katalon Studio Enterprise and Katalon Runtime Engine best selling points. This will save you a lot of time building this integration bridge yourself.

Katalon also has a store with more than 100 free, and paid plugins that could help optimize your test strategies.

Furthermore, its users are more than welcome to write keywords that target specific test scenarios within the organization, then import and use them in all other projects. 

4. Insightful and actionable report within Katalon TestOps

A comprehensive and data-driven report is most important for stakeholders to have a clear understanding of your testing effort, and the sophistication of the team.

Katalon TestOps report displays analytics of meaningful factors in detail but is easy to understand. This provides a transparent view of the key risk associated with the products, and the quality of test activities. Beyond the results, testers can look into the report to understand where things went wrong and why in order to decide on the action items.

Katalon users can choose to have a detailed execution report in HTML, CSV… saved in local, or sent via email along with error screenshots, and record video. Or if you seek a higher complexity level report and analytics, TestOps within Katalon full solution package would be the best choice.

Katalon’s Cons

1. Limitation within Desktop Testing 

Katalon entered the market initially as a powerful Web and Mobile automation framework. Even though Katalon can handle Desktop testing, it was developed and added to the supported list later on so that it is not as robust. 

Katalon Studio Enterprise can only support Windows-based applications such as UWP, WinForms, WPF… So that if desktop testing accounts for the majority of your projects, it is worth looking into Katalon supported technology to ensure the platform is applicable with your application under test.

2. Regression Testing Focused

The tool mainly simulates human action to verify if the applications act as expected. Katalon can verify, compare data, and images as well as perform end to end cross-browser testing …

But one thing to know is that Performance testing, Load testing, Unit Testing, or Security testing… are not within the focused Katalon scope of ability for the time being.

Katalon vs TestProject Summery

		Test Project	Katalon
Support	Forum Support	✅	✅
	Live Chat Support	✅	❌
	Zen Desk Support ticket	❌	✅
UI friendly		😐	✅
Pricing Plan		✅	😐
Free Training Course		❌	✅
Languages	Java, C#, Python	✅	❌
	Groovy (Java)	❌	✅
Enviroment	Support Intranet Environment	❌	✅
	Support Online Environment	✅	✅
Data Storage	Local Storage	😐	✅
	On Cloud	✅	✅
Parallel Execution with Virtual Agents		❌	✅
Jira Integration		❌	✅
API Testing	Restful	✅	✅
	SOAP	❌	✅
Check Point		❌	✅
Insight Reports		😐	✅
CICD Supported	Bamboo,AWS, CodeBuild, BuildKite, CodeShip, TravisCI	❌	✅
	Jenkin, TeamCity, Circle CI, Github, Bitbucket	✅	✅

Would you like to get an expert consultant on which framework would work better for your needs? Learn more about Katalon Studio License?

Book a call with Katalon Expert here, or leave a message below.