HeadSpin Reviews

I have been selling it to customers, and I've been using it as well. HeadSpin essentially is a mobile intelligence platform. It helps you identify the issues within your app or your website via performance testing. It gives you a platform to debug your app. It works like a simulator where you can identify the issues being faced by your app. These are real-life simulations. So, on a laptop, you can simulate Apple iPhone 13 to understand how your app is performing on Apple iPhone 13.

You can use a public cloud, or you can deploy it on your premises. So, when you want to deploy on-premises, they send something like a mini server, and they do the deployment themselves. If you want to use the cloud, you can use their cloud. All devices are hosted on their cloud, and you can go ahead and test.

We chose this solution purely on the basis of its features. The feature list is extensive. We've collaborated with some of the other companies in the market as well. A lot of companies that are using other solutions do not get access to the kind of metrics that HeadSpin captures. It is similar to the comparison between Mercedes and Volkswagen. HeadSpin is like Mercedes, and some of the other tools in the market are your plain and simple Volkswagens. 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.

Performance testing is amazing. It is one of the best solutions I've seen. 

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.

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.

The platform is pretty stable and secure. There have not been any security issues. They are ISO compliant. So, stability has never been an issue. Sometimes, we do face downtime, but most of the time, it is triggered by issues on our end.

It is absolutely scalable. It can very easily handle the device load of more than 100 or 200 devices. We have more than 100 users in our organization.

Before you start off, they give a two-week PoC, and during the PoC, you need some technical support for the product. That's because it is quite different from most of the other tools in the market. The other tools in the market are simple, and they do remote capture very easily. You can simulate a device from your laptop and see how your app is performing in a very basic version, whereas HeadSpin goes beyond that. They bring in data science and all the metrics into it, and they do performance testing. So, a user requires some amount of hand-holding to understand how to interpret these results. There are certain graphs and metrics, and there is also an option to create dashboards. You can set certain thresholds for capturing a specific metric. For example, if the load time is increased by a specific duration, such as two or three seconds, an alarm is readily triggered. You can set up a dashboard for that, which is something that requires initial hand-holding. After you do it once, it's very simple.

I would rate their support a four out of five. There is a little bit of scope for improvement because there are a lot of customers who are signing up, and the team is not able to match the pace. The ones who are there are very good, but they need to ramp up their team extensively.

They should automate their onboarding. The time to deploy is quite long. Especially when you're going on-premise, it takes six to seven weeks to deploy, which can be reduced. They can increase their professional services. While it's a great tool for automation, not a lot of companies have automation already in place. So, they can increase and improve the scope of their professional services, and they can set up automation for all things. They can write scripts and maintain the scripts themselves. While they do it at this stage, they're very expensive. That needs to change. Everything else is straightforward, and it's by and large the best.

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.

I would definitely advise going for it if it fits your organization's requirements. If you're looking at just plain app testing, you can skip it. If you are looking at a lot of advanced metrics and customer experience is one of the key challenges that you're facing and want to solve, then HeadSpin is going to completely change the game for you. So, any app or any customer that has a lot of interactions with their B2C companies definitely needs HeadSpin.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. I would've given it a ten, but they can do better on the marketing front. They can do better on the professional services front and ramp up their team, and they can also do better on the pricing front.

We use this solution to test mobile devices. We currently have Apple phones and Apple TV devices that we are testing. We want to take advantage of remote testing and completely reduce internet issues and dependency on local devices.

First of all, it's very laggy. Not with the UI, but when you interact with the remote devices, I think the latency is seven to nine seconds. That means that there is a seven- to nine-second delay on average when you click on certain things. 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.

Secondly, tvOS devices can't be connected to Wi-Fi. For example, suppose you are doing multi-region testing, meaning you want to test one application in multiple regions. You have to change the location and use a different Wi-Fi or VPN for each device. Mobile devices can be connected, but it's not there yet for tvOS devices. Here's another example: Apple TV is connected to LAN, and if you have LAN, it cannot switch between regions because the LAN is for a particular user. Since the Wi-Fi support is not there, you can't switch it to, let's say, UK or Denmark because it's connected to LAN. That's one drawback and disadvantage we are facing because our application supports around 12 to 14 regions.

My company just recently moved to HeadSpin about six months ago, so it is pretty new to us. We have a lot of things to explore still while we're in the testing phase, so we haven't completely migrated to HeadSpin yet.

The solution lags all the time. For example, they give us a device for Samsung Galaxy. When we open any application inside that device and interact by pressing or swiping up, it takes seven to nine seconds for the device to react.

The scalability is completely based on how many devices you have access to. If you have 10 devices, one person can only access one device at a time.

If you want to access multiple devices at the same time, you have the option of distribution testing. This means that if you have 50 test cases and you want to execute them in five devices, to make things faster each device can run 10 test cases. I have seen that feature documented, but we are still exploring it and haven't explored quite that far yet.

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.

We previously used BrowserStack. The main reason we opted for HeadSpin is that BrowserStack didn't support TV devices, and we use many Apple TVs and Samsung TVs.

We're collaborating with the HeadSpin team for installation and deployment. The collaboration is really smooth. Anytime we want to adjust something, we create a ticket for it and they implement it.

I would recommend HeadSpin because I think the technical support is really good, and they support multiple devices. Plus, they support distribution testing. There are some limitations, but I think that since this platform is fairly new compared with other platforms, things are going to take some time.

I would rate HeadSpin as an eight out of ten.

We use HeadSpin for hardware and software. We use software for different applications, such as social media, and we use hardware to check different locations and hardware performances.

The most valuable feature depends on management needs and what they want from ERP reports. For example, managers examine social media and what applications customers use the most. They assess this and make similar price plans or products for customers.

HeadSpin needs to improve the hardware. With the mobile, the battery life reduces and must be continuously charged. HeadSpin should focus on hardware tests and installing mini-computers instead of mobiles to improve the hardware.

As an additional feature, HeadSpin can add the ability for different reports. For example, if I configure something, I want to be able to show it to management by producing a specific report. It will reflect more value and make it easier for management to make spending decisions. In addition, if management can see these kinds of reports on all devices and applications we configure, they can allocate money for the proper purpose.

We have used HeadSpin for 12 months. We are using the second version of HeadSpin.

HeadSpin runs constantly, but its stability depends on the service provider. If there is an issue, it may likely be the internet which could lead to a disconnection.

However, the performance of HeadSpin primarily depends on the hardware. For example, if you have to charge the mobile continuously, the battery can worsen and stop performing. Therefore, rather than putting the hardware in a mobile, it should be in a mini-computer.

It is scalable and depends on the test or report desired. If you're targeting a specific area, you can roll out an already known test case to get a better result.

We used technical support when we were in deployment mode. Once HeadSpin was installed and properly operating, our need for technical support declined. We also had an employee managing the technology. 

I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of HeadSpin was very easy and user-friendly. It was easy to configure and write a script to achieve the desired outcome.

The deployment of HeadSpin was also very quick for us. First, we did the enrollment in all states, which took six months, and within one year, we were already in operation. Maintenance and operation also started within one year.

There is a specific department that uses HeadSpin and generates reports for management. In addition, we have network and device monitoring tools that control and monitor usage and different applications.

We have about 13 to 14 people using HeadSpin.

There are licensing costs, but it varies from company to company. I believe the licensing cost is cheap because it's a total solution, hardware, license and software.

Regarding advice on whether someone should use this solution, it depends on what kind of usage, data, monitoring and reporting they want from HeadSpin.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten because we have achieved a lot in our operations, costs, support and reports.
Another way HeadSpin can improve is if one license is used across the board, not different ones. For example, if you have multiple clients in different regions, instead of releasing versions per region, it may be a good idea to release one new version globally.

We use HeadSpin for automated, manual, and performance testing of our apps. Presently, we have 70 users, including QA, developers, product managers, and the operations team.

HeadSpin allowed us to manage remote work during Covid, enable continuous automation execution, and facilitate collaboration between various departments (product managers, developers, etc..)

The HeadSpin platform has enabled us to log a lot more details about bugs such as device logs, network logs, FPS, memory use, etc., along with the video. This information helps developers provide faster fixes, reducing regression bugs caused by these fixes.

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.

HeadSpin would benefit by adding code coverage. On the front end, when we execute our automation or do a manual change, we don't know what percentage of the code has been tested. If HeadSpin could provide the coverage percentage, that would be helpful.

I have been using HeadSpin for two years.

Stability is good. I would rate it a seven or eight out of ten. There is room for improvement. Sometimes, devices go offline and some features are not functioning on some devices, specifically on iOS. On Android, it is stable.

The scalability of HeadSpin is good. We have had no problems with performance.

Whenever we face any issues, they get resolved quickly by the support team. When features are not working or if we don't know how to use a certain feature because they are more complex, customer service and support respond very fast.

Positive

HeadSpin is easy to set up for the basic features. There are various features that a layman would not know and require training. Deployment takes one day.

Pricing is very competitive & totally worth it.

We reviewed different cloud vendor providers for automation testing, but HeadSpin provided a lot of features that others were not.

Depending on the user, if you are planning on using HeadSpin for automation, it is a good tool. It fulfills everything from automation to manual performance. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I used HeadSpin to run my test. I use Bitrise for a CI tool and I integrate it with HeadSpin to run my test.

HeadSpin has been a major benefit for us to run our dashboards on real devices. At first, we used, emulators but on real devices are much better.

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.

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.

I have been using HeadSpin for approximately one year.

The stability of HeadSpin could improve because sometimes the devices are offline because of the downtime they have due to maintenance. The performance can be reduced.

I have only tested the solution with a few devices. I do not have more information about scalability.

We have a total of approximately five people using this solution in my organization.

HeadSpin support has been very fast and helpful.

I rate the technical support from HeadSpin a four out of five.

They are very good.

I have previously used CobbleStone and it is a more user-friendly solution than HeadSpin. If you did a benchmark on them, it will be great because CobbleStone is far ahead.

The documentation is helpful, HeadSpin has a lot of information making the implementation simple. The implementation took approximately a few days. We had to integrate the solution with CI tools.

We used the support from HeadSpin for the implementation. We have one person that supports the solution.

My company prefers to use real devices for testing and they have shares in HeadSpin, they insist on using HeadSpin. However, there are other competitors that are not much better when it comes to iOS device compatibility.

I rate HeadSpin a seven out of ten.

HeadSpin has great support but the iOS device compatibility is very poor.