CrossBrowserTesting vs HeadSpin comparison

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CrossBrowserTesting

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

CrossBrowserTesting and HeadSpin compete in testing solutions. CrossBrowserTesting is preferred for cost-effectiveness and support, while HeadSpin is noted for its extensive features.

Features: CrossBrowserTesting enables live browser testing, visual testing, and integrates with various tools. HeadSpin offers global device infrastructure, real-test environment capabilities, and advanced performance monitoring tools.

Room for Improvement: CrossBrowserTesting could improve in areas such as advanced performance tracking, global device availability, and seamless automation integration. HeadSpin can enhance user interface simplicity, reduce initial deployment complexity, and better cost transparency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CrossBrowserTesting provides easy setup and responsive customer service facilitating quick implementation. HeadSpin, while providing strong support during deployment, requires more time and resources due to its complex features.

Pricing and ROI: CrossBrowserTesting is budget-friendly with a pay-as-you-go model, offering quick ROI for smaller projects. HeadSpin's higher initial investment reflects its extensive features, providing long-term value for enterprises aiming for comprehensive testing capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed CrossBrowserTesting vs. HeadSpin Report (Updated: April 2025).

CrossBrowserTesting vs. HeadSpin

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Helped 850,028 peers since 2012

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

CrossBrowserTesting

Ranking in Functional Testing Tools

28th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HeadSpin

Ranking in Functional Testing Tools

30th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mobile APM (7th), Mobile App Testing Tools (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Functional Testing Tools category, the mindshare of CrossBrowserTesting is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HeadSpin is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Functional Testing Tools

Featured Reviews

Michael Hutchison

Web Specialist at Mayo Clinic

Static screenshots are the feature most often used, because they are a simple method of detecting problems

The screenshot tool defaults to a screen layout instead of a full page test. I find it a bit cumbersome that I can't have it run a full screenshot as my default. Every time, I have to select the full screen, then restart its captures, which seems a waste of time and energy. This is, admittedly, a minor complaint.

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Abhishek-Mehta

Associate Vice President at Onnivation

An advanced platform that provides visibility into the performance in the real world and enables us to test AV content

There is definitely room for improvement in terms of marketing. Marketing is something that is not that great. If you look at some of the other companies in the space, they have a lot of published case studies and tested models. They make a lot of noise. They have got some of their best customers talking about them, which is where HeadSpin needs to work. They should automate their onboarding. A lot of things are still manual. They can create a video assistant or something like that to completely automate the entire process. There is a great scope to improve professional services. The time to deploy is quite long. They can increase and improve the scope of their professional services and set up automation through scripts. They do it at this stage, but they're very expensive. I would love to see them come up with project-based costing for companies that are startups or low on funds. Apart from these, they have been on top of the game in terms of features. I can't think of any other new set of features at this point in time because they're already on top in terms of innovation.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CBT has made it easier to troubleshoot issues across devices when we do not have actual access to those specific devices. I even opt for CBT sometimes when we do have access to the device just because it is easier."

"Each new session started with the live testing feature allows for a cleared browser and new experience to be able to not only see these attributes on the page clearly but also pass clean data."

"I have found CrossBrowserTesting to be scalable."

"I must acknowledge that the customer support has been A++ when I have run into problems."

"I am able to continuously test my new releases across browser versions without issues."

"The CrossBrowserTesting Selenium API and live test features have greatly improved our team's ability to quickly and effectively perform QA."

"Selenium Grid allows testing multiple platforms to insure functionality for most users."

"The ability to replay sessions is valuable for tracking down issues."

More CrossBrowserTesting pros

"The technical support is really helpful because we can set up direct calls with them if we want to. We can use Zoom or Google Meet to interact with them directly, and if there is an issue in our system, they will help us by reproducing the issue in their machines and trying to figure out a solution. The support is really smooth, and we like that they're very supportive."

"The most valuable feature is that this is the first connected intelligence all-in-one platform."

"The most valuable feature of HeadSpin it's the integration with other solutions. It is great. I can search for an element or do a quick debugging on the application right on HeadSpin. It's very useful."

"It has an interesting feature called AV box testing. A lot of companies that are in the OTT segment don't really understand what their streaming is like. They can't test for streaming quality. There are restrictions where you cannot simulate live streaming. For example, on Netflix, you can't simulate how a movie is being streamed on a remote device. That's why HeadSpin has got this AV box testing feature. It is a patented feature. They send an AV box to your location, and you can test live streaming, which is something that no other company does."

"The most valuable features of the product are the performance parameters it gives us."

"The initial setup of HeadSpin was very easy and user-friendly. It was easy to configure and write a script."

Cons

"There should be more detailed training on CrossBrowserTesting."

"A problem that we are facing quite often is related to the network connection. Tests can fail if the remote CrossBrowserTesting's VM has connection problems. This happens mostly with browsers of Internet Explorer family which work on Windows OS."

"I have experienced some lagging issues, and it does not seem like all of the testing environments are configured the same."

"Being able to test on real devices via the virtual connection is wonderful, but it can cause some lag and load time issues while testing."

"Sometimes the testing is slow."

"The five minute timeouts can cause irritation if you have just popped away to consult some supporting documentation."

"Elements of 'real' mobile/tablet testing could be sped up."

"I have had quite a few issues trying to use a virtual machine to test our application on."

More CrossBrowserTesting cons

"Support and pricing could be improved."

"HeadSpin needs to improve the hardware. With the mobile, the battery life reduces and must be continuously charged."

"They should automate their onboarding. A lot of things are still manual. They can create a video assistant or something like that to completely automate the entire process."

"Sometimes, devices go offline and some features are not functioning on some devices, specifically on iOS."

"HeadSpin could improve on the user interface because it is very poor. The checks that are done on the iOS devices are very difficult, but for Android, it runs great. For all iOS devices, the user interface and how it interacts with the device are very poor."

"If you want to do some testing or check the devices manually or check the application in a particular device manually, it is really laggy. That's a disappointment because sometimes we would like to do manual testing when our local devices are not available."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is worth the pricing as the product is supported on multiple platforms and browsers."

"SmartBear offers bundles of products that work together."

"CrossBrowserTesting offered the best value for its price."

"A few intermediary pricing options for small QA teams would be nice, e.g., unlimited screenshots, "as you need it" parallel tests, etc."

"The lowest price point is very reasonable. It is also useful if only one person in the company needs to check on the browser display."

"We have a yearly license for 16 devices."

"It has a yearly license. There is no other option. It is expensive. There are a lot of other cheaper players in the market, but it is like a Mercedes. You pay an extra premium for it, but you get the benefits. I would love to see them come up with project-based costing. Companies that are low on funds or new-age can do with pricing that is easily digestible. They can give them a pricing model for three months. They can provide a startup package."

"It's not cheap, but there are a few different packages and different prices for enterprises with different product versions."

"I believe the licensing cost is cheap because it's a total solution, hardware, license and software."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Government

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Comparisons

BrowserStack vs CrossBrowserTesting

Compared 69% of the time

Sauce Labs vs CrossBrowserTesting

Compared 16% of the time

Tricentis Tosca vs CrossBrowserTesting

Compared 14% of the time

More CrossBrowserTesting Competitors

Perfecto vs HeadSpin

Compared 63% of the time

BrowserStack vs HeadSpin

Compared 37% of the time

More HeadSpin Competitors

Product Reports

CrossBrowserTesting

Download CrossBrowserTesting product report

Download HeadSpin product report

Overview

CrossBrowserTesting is a cloud testing platform that gives instant access to 1500+ different real desktop and mobile browsers for testers, developers, and designers.

Native debugging tools make manual testing easy to inspect and correct HTML, CSS, and JavaScript errors on any browser.
Take automated screenshots across multiple browsers at once, then compare side-by-side against historical test runs.

SmartBear

Headspin is a data science-driven Mobile APM platform that leverages an AI platform to combine global device infrastructure, test automation, machine learning-driven performance, and quality of experience analytics. HeadSpin was founded to answer the demand for a global testing, performance monitoring, and quality of experience (QoE) management platform to assist businesses in ensuring optimal digital experiences across mobile, audio, online, and video delivery channels.

Headspin facilitates seamless collaboration between product managers, SREs, developers, QA/release engineers, and support staff to:

Quicken development times using intelligent automation in test and production.
Optimize digital performance across devices, networks, and apps.
Automate insights discovery with practical, context-aware AI and analytics.

Headspin Features

Headspin has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Global device infrastructure allows end-to-end monitoring and testing with thousands of devices in numerous locations on real carrier and WiFi networks around the world. SDK is not required.
Test automation and APIs integrate into CI/CD workflows to enable functional and performance testing pre and post release. Support for all testing frameworks.
Performance, QoE, and machine learning automatically expose issues and points to underlying root causes across all layers of the stack, from quantifying audio/video quality of experience to code and packet visibility.
Insights-to-actions delivers regression and aggregation insights throughout the digital experience lifecycle. These insights take you from planning and development to troubleticketing and operations. Trending, alerts, and analytics.

More features include:

Hosted Device Cloud
On-prem Device Appliance
Performance & Experience Analytics
Professional Services & Support
Education, Certification & Training

Headspin Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Headspin. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Use data science to identify problems and root cause analysis

Empower QA and DevOps teams with data science insights and test automation

Global teams can work together using remote access

Capture performance and UX issues

Reviews from Real Users

Headspin stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of these include its easy setup, scalability, and robust customer support. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

Abhishek M., Associate Vice President at Onnivation, notes, “A lot of companies that are using other solutions do not get access to the kind of metrics that HeadSpin captures…HeadSpin is highly advanced. It has got all the performance structures to provide visibility into how my app is performing in the real world. It also helps to identify the gaps.”

Shiba S., Automation Engineer at GlobalLogic India, writes, “The technical support is really helpful because we can set up direct calls with them if we want to…They support multiple devices. Plus, they support distribution testing.”

Sample Customers

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Accenture, Sony, Los Angeles Times, ADP, Verizon, T-Mobile, Wistia

Zynga, Tinder, Pinterest, Akamai, Microsoft, Airbnb, Jam City, TMobile, Mozilla, CNN, Cognizant, Yahoo!, ebay, Quora, Walmart, Kohls, Telstra

CrossBrowserTesting vs. HeadSpin