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HeadSpin vs SmartBear TestComplete comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

HeadSpin
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Mobile APM (7th), Mobile App Testing Tools (9th)
SmartBear TestComplete
Ranking in Functional Testing Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Regression Testing Tools (4th), Test Automation Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Functional Testing Tools category, the mindshare of HeadSpin is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SmartBear TestComplete is 4.9%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Functional Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Saorabh Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
It fulfills everything from automation to manual performance
The most valuable features of the product are the performance parameters it gives us, as well as the seamless connectivity with our automation suites. I am also pleased with the continuous enhancements made to HeadSpin. There have been many features added since we started using the product, and all of them are useful.
Prakhar Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for integration automation, user-based automation, and web automation
The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts. The solution has introduced a new feature that helps us identify objects we cannot normally identify. It gives you a fair idea of objects, resolving the object recognition issue. The solution can be used to perform different tests on different machines.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."
"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 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."
"In TestComplete, I saw a conformed package of a tool that kept everybody in consistency. The team was able to regenerate further tests without having to manipulate more code because the record feature is great."
"SmartBear TestComplete performs some self-healing and has a feature called OCR (optical character recognition)."
"The solution's most valuable features are the drag-and-drop feature, keyword-driven approach, and reusability of the scripts."
"Recording and playback of tests were easier with SmartBear TestComplete...It is a scalable solution."
"I like the cross browser compatibility. It saves a lot of time re-writing scripts to accommodate different browsers."
"The solution has a very nice interface."
"Selenium integration."
"The database checkpoints detect problems which are difficult for a human resource to find."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"TestComplete gives support to do requests to a SOAP web service but has no support to do HTTP requests on Restful services."
"Product is not stable enough and it crashes often."
"It is very hard to read the test log generated by TestComplete Executor if the log file is very big. TestComplete Executor is a small tool for just running the TestComplete test framework (not for developing)."
"The artificial intelligence needs to be improved."
"The integration tools could be better."
"The licensing costs are a little bit high and should be reduced."
"The solution needs Mac OS support. Right now, the solution has only been developed to accommodate Windows OS."
"Stability issues occurred only when connecting to the SourceSafe. Sometimes, after getting the latest version, the tool hangs and it should be reopened in order to recover."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the licensing cost is cheap because it's a total solution, hardware, license and software."
"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."
"We have a yearly license for 16 devices."
"It's not cheap, but there are a few different packages and different prices for enterprises with different product versions."
"The licensing costs are in the range of $1,000 to $3,000."
"Our ROI is about $10,000 a year."
"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."
"The product is becoming more and more expensive."
"It comes with a high cost."
"The option we chose was around $2,000 USD."
"Buy modules on demand. If you have a four-person team and they will each automate tests only 25% of the time, it's better to buy a floating licence and share the tool during the work day."
"My advice so far, is that while it’s not quite as powerful and easy to use as UFT, its price tag more than makes up for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?
TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SmartBear TestComplete?
I am not involved in pricing or licensing; our management team handles these aspects.
What needs improvement with SmartBear TestComplete?
While using SmartBear TestComplete, we are fine with the current capabilities, however, it would be beneficial to improve some performance aspects, especially the image comparison feature. Occasion...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Zynga, Tinder, Pinterest, Akamai, Microsoft, Airbnb, Jam City, TMobile, Mozilla, CNN, Cognizant, Yahoo!, ebay, Quora, Walmart, Kohls, Telstra
Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.
Find out what your peers are saying about HeadSpin vs. SmartBear TestComplete and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.