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Appium vs IBM Rational Test Workbench comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Appium
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (7th), Regression Testing Tools (6th)
IBM Rational Test Workbench
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (21st), API Testing Tools (16th), Test Automation Tools (37th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Appium and IBM Rational Test Workbench aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Appium is designed for Mobile Development Platforms and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 6.7% compared to last year.
IBM Rational Test Workbench, on the other hand, focuses on Performance Testing Tools, holds 0.7% mindshare, up 0.2% since last year.
Mobile Development Platforms
Performance Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Luis Gerardo Meneses Hernandez - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for direct interaction with an application's DOM but complex configuration
What I like about Appium right now is that it's like Cypress in the sense that I can get to the new DOM of the application and select the components and create the functions to test the components in the way I want them to be tested. That's why I like it right now.
KashifJamil - PeerSpot reviewer
Good integration with other tools, stable, scales easily
There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation. This includes the workbench as well as the other tools. In the future, I would like to see the other types of tests supported, that are not already covered in the DevOps approach. This would include, for example, penetration testing.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We develop apps using the React Native framework, and Appium integrates well for testing those apps. The Appium automation framework also has good integration with GitHub Actions and plenty of other tools and frameworks, including BrowserStack."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"The interface is user-friendly, which is beneficial for users, even for those who are new to it."
"The solution is stable."
"The best feature of Appium is that it allows you to inspect the element. With the Appium Inspector, you don't have to install another application to do the inspection. I also like that Appium has Android device connectivity. Currently, most people use Appium as automation software, and I haven't found any other tool that's more powerful than Appium."
"The library is extensive so the driver interacts with most functions or actions on mobile devices."
"Appium's best feature is that it supports multiple frameworks."
"Obviously because of automation, it reduces manual testing efforts."
"Reporting is pretty good. Its interface is also good. I'm overall pretty happy with the functionality and use of IBM Rational Test Workbench."
"This solution provides for API testing, functional UI testing, performance testing, and service virtualization."
 

Cons

"It breaks down."
"We haven't been able to fully leverage Appium for multiple reasons. I think number one is just that the tests take a long time to run. We have had some issues around just the results themselves and how predictable they are, but those are not issues with Appium directly."
"It needs to accommodate applications that use React.js and AngularJS."
"The deployment process and configuration are quite complex and require improvement."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"I rarely use Appium nowadays because I'm now at the managerial level, but the last time I used it, whenever I selected and clicked on an element, Appium was very slow. I tried to debug it, but I still couldn't find the problem, so this is an area for improvement in the solution. Another area for improvement lies with the connector and server. For example, the effort to get into the local machine sometimes causes the emulator to become slow, which then leads to failure in testing, and this is the usual issue I've encountered from Appium. An additional feature I'd like added to Appium in its next release is being able to do automation in iOS without using XPath and the name of the element. In Xcode, you can use previous UI tests for detecting elements, but in Appium, you have to use Xpath and the element name instead of being able to directly put the X-UiPath, which is what you can do in Xcode. In iOS as well, sometimes the element doesn't have a name or a path. Sometimes, there's also no element."
"The installation part of Appium is somewhat clumsy, requiring numerous dependencies and configurations."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"It should have more interfaces. In terms of interfaces or protocols, what you can do with Rational is far limited as compared to other products out there. What it does, it does great, but it only gives you limited types of protocols. It supports between 8 to 15 types of protocols, whereas other test tools give you 20 to 30 types of protocols with which you can do testing and convert to script. It records Javascript-based scripts, and you got to know a little bit of Java to basically be able to edit them, but the level of editing you got to do is very low. I like that, but the ability to edit the script is not as good as Parasoft or LoadRunner, which have C-Script."
"There are a number of things that they can do to simplify the tools, but the most important thing that they need to do is simplify the installation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"It's completely 100% free, and there are no hidden fees."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"The solution is free."
"It's open source, so it's completely free."
"The solution is open-source."
"There is no license for this solution because it is open-source."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"The pricing is a little bit on the higher side, although it is really good."
"It doesn't really concern me. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Non Profit
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Appium?
I do recommend Appium. It is an open-source solution and completely free of charge. We use Appium and Appium Studio as our base for any type of mobile automation for testing. It has a great interfa...
What do you like most about Appium?
Appium helps me to do as much as much as I want to.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appium?
My experience with Appium from a pricing perspective is favorable due to it being open source, making it a cost-effective option.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

No data available
Rational Test Workbench, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Functional Tester, IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Financial Insurance Management Corp.
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