SmartBear TestComplete vs SpecFlow comparison

The compared SmartBear and Tricentis solutions aren't in the same category. SmartBear is ranked #5 in TAt , with an average rating of 7.8, and holds a 6.0% mindshare in the category. Tricentis is ranked #10 in TMT , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of SmartBear users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of Tricentis users who would recommend it.

SmartBear TestComplete

Read 76 SmartBear TestComplete reviews

4,735 Views
3,551 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

SpecFlow

Read 4 SpecFlow reviews

500 Views
265 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

SmartBear TestComplete

SpecFlow

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SmartBear TestComplete and SpecFlow based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Tricentis, UiPath, OpenText and others in Test Automation Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Test Automation Tools Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Test Automation Tools

June 2025

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Helped 862,543 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

SmartBear TestComplete

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Functional Testing Tools (7th), Regression Testing Tools (4th), Test Automation Tools (5th)

SpecFlow

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Test Management Tools (10th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. SmartBear TestComplete is designed for Test Automation Tools and holds a mindshare of 6.0%, down 6.8% compared to last year.
SpecFlow, on the other hand, focuses on Test Management Tools, holds 1.6% mindshare, down 1.7% since last year.

Test Automation Tools

Test Management Tools

Featured Reviews

Prakhar Goel

Sr Test Lead at Emerson

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.

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KreshenAmourdon

Software Automation Test Engineer at I2era

An automation solution with good integration capabilities that needs to focus on providing an option for chain testing to its users

In our company, we need to maintain the scripts of the product daily, and in case of failures, we need to check out the scripts. I would recommend the product to those planning to use it based on both they are planning to build. If you are going for unit testing or small scripts, then you can go with SpecFlow. I don't have much experience with the solution. It is a good and straightforward product. It is also an easy-to-use and user-friendly product that can easily adapt to any framework. I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the SmartBear TestComplete are self-healing, they reduce the maintenance required. The different languages SmartBear TestComplete supports are good because some of our libraries are written in Python, JavaScript, and C#. It's very easy to put them all under one project and use them. The are other features that SmartBear TestComplete has but the competition widely has them as well."

"The solution helps improve the stability of our product. It also decreases the work of our manual quality assurance engineers."

"The most valuable features are the desktop and mobile modules."

"When compared to other tools, it is very simple."

"Recording and playback of tests were easier with SmartBear TestComplete...It is a scalable solution."

"It works very fine. It is fast on almost any machine, and it is also very well organized. I like its object mapping and its capability to find and interact with almost everything that exists on Windows."

"It allows us to test both desktop and web applications."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is regression testing tools."

More SmartBear TestComplete pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is unit testing...It is also an easy-to-use and user-friendly product that can easily adapt to any framework."

"The initial setup is easy."

"One of the most valuable features of SpecFlow for us is its risk identification capabilities."

"SpecFlow's best feature is the ability to add additional layers to the programming."

Cons

"I didn't use it very heavily. One issue that I found was that there wasn't a quick way or a button to move Visual Basic scripts to TestComplete. We have a lot of such scripts in our organization, and it would be very useful to have some option to easily move these scripts. It is currently possible to convert these scripts to TestComplete, but it is not easy. I have to write some code, but everything is not available immediately."

"Right now, when you buy the solution, you need to pay for one solution. You receive one set up and you install it and it's just in that one machine. It would be ideal if they could offer one subscription where you can connect to different machines with a group subscription."

"TestComplete gives support to do requests to a SOAP web service but has no support to do HTTP requests on Restful services."

"The recording function, when using Python, could be improved, as it does not work well in recording testing."

"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."

"Occasionally, image comparison results in failures, possibly due to issues with resolution or font size on the server side, which can be challenging to identify."

"Product is not stable enough and it crashes often."

"The solution’s customer support should be improved."

More SmartBear TestComplete cons

"SpecFlow's installation and configuration can be a bit challenging due to its flexibility as an open-source tool."

"I'd prefer in TFS if we could be writing test cases, not in the old classical version. We should be writing in Gherkin and then automatically have it convert that Gherkin test case into SpecFlow feature files."

"SpecFlow would be improved with the addition of functionality reporting, which would be really helpful for automation testing."

"Regarding improvement, it would be good if SpecFlow could provide chain testing, which it currently doesn't allow."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SmartBear TestComplete is an expensive tool."

"Our ROI is about $10,000 a year."

"It comes with a high cost."

"The solution's licensing cost has increased because it has moved to some new SLM-based licenses."

"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."

"The pricing is a little above average — it could be lower."

"Overall, for us, the cost of the TestComplete platform and the three extra modules is around $8,000."

"The solution's pricing is too high."

More SmartBear TestComplete pricing and cost advice

"SpecFlow is open-source and free of charge."

"SpecFlow is an open-source product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Healthcare Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Non Profit

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about SmartBear TestComplete?

TestComplete has strong reporting capabilities. The reports they generate are really good.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about SpecFlow?

One of the most valuable features of SpecFlow for us is its risk identification capabilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SpecFlow?

SpecFlow is an open-source product. You just use SpecFlow's plugin capabilities or add it to your existing framework.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SpecFlow?

In terms of improvement, SpecFlow's installation and configuration can be a bit challenging due to its flexibility as an open-source tool. While it offers a balanced flexibility, setting it up migh...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tricentis Tosca vs SmartBear TestComplete

Compared 21% of the time

OpenText Functional Testing vs SmartBear TestComplete

Compared 12% of the time

Ranorex Studio vs SmartBear TestComplete

Compared 9% of the time

Katalon Studio vs SmartBear TestComplete

Compared 9% of the time

Qt Squish vs SmartBear TestComplete

Compared 9% of the time

More SmartBear TestComplete Competitors

Tricentis Tosca vs SpecFlow

Compared 69% of the time

Tricentis qTest vs SpecFlow

Compared 31% of the time

More SpecFlow Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SmartBear TestComplete

March 2025

Download SmartBear TestComplete product report

Buyer's Guide

SpecFlow

June 2025

Download SpecFlow product report

Also Known As

No data available

SpecFlow+

Overview

What is SmartBear TestComplete?

TestComplete is a reliable, sturdy automated testing platform created by SmartBear Software. SmartBear Software is a worldwide technological leader known for developing quality enterprise-class development and testing solutions.

TestComplete simplifies the process of creating tests for numerous applications, including, but not limited to; Desktop, Android, IOS, Web browsers, and Windows. Application tests can be manual, scripted, and even recorded by using keyword-driven or data-driven functionality. There are even additional options for error reporting and automated playback. The object repository is extremely accurate and is fully customizable. TestComplete can easily be used by experienced developers and even by manual novice testers to develop quality automated UI tests quickly.

TestComplete offers three different testing scenarios:

Desktop: Users can easily and quickly automate UI tests using today’s most popular desktop applications, such as; Windows, Java, Python,.Net, VBScript, and more.
Web: Users can effortlessly create renewable tests for all of today’s popular web applications, including JavaScript frameworks on 2000+ trusted browser and platform integrations.
Mobile: Users can safely build and automate serviceable UI tests on actual or virtual android or IOS devices, locally or in the cloud. Users can create code or codeless tests. TestComplete seamlessly integrates with many of today’s popular frameworks.

Key Features

Easily create automated UI tests: TestComplete offers scriptless Record and Replay or simple keyword-driven tests to quickly develop any type of UI test users may require. Tests can be recorded once, then replayed when needed across various applications on mobile, web, or desktop environments. TestComplete integrates with many different languages, such as Java, Python, C+, and more.
Keyword driven tests: Users can easily divide testing steps, actions, objects, and data with an integrated keyword-driven test structure. This makes it easy for every user to participate in the test automation process; there is no programming experience needed. Everything is made simple with easy-to-use point-and-click options.
Data driven tests: Easily distinguish data from test commands to keep administrative efforts simple. Users can improve overall coverage by running various automated mobile, desktop, or web UI tests.
Record and Replay: Users can reuse created automated tests across every environment as often as desired. This helps to expand overall test coverage and represents a huge cost and time savings.

Reviews from Real Users

Sandhiya T S., Sr Solutions Engineer at Lexington Soft, relates, “The record and replay aspects of the solution are quite useful for people. With them, you don't have to write any scripts. Basically, you can record your actions and play them back later. The initial setup is also very easy.”

Sai S R., Staff Test Architect at a tech services company, says, "The most valuable features of the SmartBear TestComplete are self-healing, they reduce the maintenance required. The different languages SmartBear TestComplete supports are good because some of our libraries are written in Python, JavaScript, and C#. It's very easy to put them all under one project and use them."

SmartBear

SpecFlow is a testing framework that supports Behaviour Driven Development (BDD). It lets us define application behavior in plain meaningful English text using a simple grammar defined by a language called Gherkin.

Tricentis

Sample Customers

Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Boeing, McAfee, EMC, Intuit, and Thomson Reuters.

Microsoft, Caterpillar, Siemens, Charles Schwab, IBM, Deloitte, Accenture, Philips, Dell, Deutsche Bank

Buyer's Guide

Test Automation Tools

June 2025

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