SmartBear TestComplete Reviews

Ability to test all types of application (desktop, mobile, and web).

In all projects where I participated it helped significantly improve and speed up regression testing, which is usually bottleneck before release.

Since v11 of TestComplete it has all the features I was dreaming about during these years. Probably the only one great thing could be cross-platform testing (Linux, MacOS).

I've been using it since 2006.

No, I have never had any difficulties with TestComplete. All possible issues are also covered in TestComplete's help system and available online.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It is impressive! What I like the most is the fact that support team helps solving problems not only for their registered customers, but everyone else as well.

In last 12 years I also used SilkTest and Squish. They have some benefits which TestComplete doesn't have, but in general TestComplete overcomes them.

Was it difficult to set up the application first time? No. Or was it difficult to start using it? No, it was easy thanks to its tutorials.

I did everything by myself. There is nothing difficult in it, TestComplete is very user-friendly.

• Front-end click and record
• Ability to read in from and output to text files

• Creating test input with tens of thousands of combinations of fields
• Evolution of regression suite to sanity check new builds

• Product ungracefully crashes or hangs sometimes
• Sometimes gets caught out by messages appearing which confuses what is in focus

I used it for five years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's good.

It's good.

It's a simple installation, plus a license key.

• Some dev input required to develop app for playback
• Products own script playback facility is unreliable and we needed something that could kill and relaunch TestComplete

This was all handled by management.

An evaluation of Microsoft competition found it to not be suitable for front-end testing (it was more suitable to integration testing).

The two most valuable features are the manual script library (projects) and Test Execute.

I set up a manual test for new functions and hand it off to a tester (who uses Test Execute). Once the new function test is completed, it is added to regression for all future versions. This has allowed us to make significant product changes, new server deployments, and hosting changes with high confidence.

From my understanding, the product has changed significantly since v5 was released. I don’t know that it has necessarily improved, for my needs. If I worked in a different shop, then I might need an entirely different feature set compared to what I use now.

We've used it since May 2007.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

I can't recall the last time I needed support.

I can't recall the last time I needed support.

Typically, I used my own method for automation (scripting tool, test data stored in SQL, results stored in SQL, result comparison to baseline with custom script). At the time I purchased TestComplete, the script recording tool wasn’t that great and I didn’t have the skills to write my own scripts. Over time, I used a different automation program and picked up the syntax for its scripting language. The product is currently called WinAutomation, though it had a different name at the time, that I can’t recall.

The initial setup was very straightforward. I installed the main app on my local workstation and test execute on five workstations available for testers. We use a shared network drive to store tests.

I installed everything myself. It was very straightforward. The real key is knowing what you need for your environment and to adapt the available tools.

It’s hard to sell testing tools, especially in a company that is owned by someone who thinks of software as a mule to pull his cart. It was a very tough sell and it is hard to quantify in dollars the money saved. However, I can say, with confidence, that there have been over one hundred bugs caught through regression since the software was purchased, which is a great track record for a team this size.

TestComplete is used for testing Windows desktop products; specifically the Embarcadero VCL interfaces created by Delphi/C++. All debug flags must be enabled during compilation that generates an output file required by TestComplete to identify and interact with the UI objects in the application.

An important feature of TestComplete is the ability to modularize testing. A lot of effort has been put into breaking the test script into reusable functions/methods that can be called from any test. A number of function libraries were created. This enabled reuse of code and kept the projects and project suites small. This is important because the size of these test artifacts have an impact on project loading time.

Test automation with TestComplete significantly (estimated 80%) reduced the regression timeline for a complex AUT with a large number of test cases. Automation with TestComplete has significantly shortened the feedback loop and the timeline to get a release production ready. A secondary benefit is that manual testers have begun thinking more technically about writing tests cases.

There are two major areas for improvement:

1. Version control integration embeds information in the project suite, and project files that include a direct reference to the location of the project or project suite in Team Foundation Server. When branching a set of scripts for the next version of the AUT, TFS gets confused about where the file should be mapped into source control. A workaround is to replace the hardcoded paths with relative paths.
2. There was also an issue object mapping related to the need to modularize the test script code. With the implementation of other automation test suites such at HP UFT, it is possible to have one object map for each function library. TestComplete has a limitation of only one object map per project. In order to modularize the code it was necessary to have a single shared object map used across multiple projects and project suites.

I have used TestComplete for 20 months. It was chosen as an incumbent toolset could not interact with the product to be tested.

Integration with third-party products; specifically Microsoft Team Foundation Server and HP ALM could not be overcome. A custom integration to HP ALM was written using the HP ALM OTA API.

TestComplete has been a stable product.

Customer Service can be slow to respond to electronic forms of communication and they do not have a way for a customer to speak directly to customer support. You create a ticket online, and request a phone call.

The team seems to be very knowledgeable when communication is established.

TestComplete was added to the toolset. HP UFT is used for automated tests for other products.

Setup is straightforward unless third-party tool integration is required. Integration with Microsoft Team Foundation Server is a little complex for initial configuration. Once it is understood the process is repeatable.

Implemented in-house. Implementation is not difficult to implement or write tests especially if you have experience with other test automation tools.

We have not done a ROI calculation. However, automated testing with TestComplete has cut regression test time by months.

HP UFT was tried but the object recognition did not work with the implementation technology.

Possibility of the automated testing, installing plugins and extensions, data-driven testing & de-bugger.

I’ve used it only as a free 30-days trial and I'm not sure of how our company is using it.

I’m not a specialized tester and I’ve used it just for some private tests and have found in it what I was looking for.

I've used it for 3 years.

I've not had issues with deploying it.

I've had no issues with stability.

I've had no issues with scalability.

I didn't need customer service, so I have no experience with it.

I didn't need technical support, so I have no experience with it.

We did not use a different solution.

It was neither straightforward nor complex.

I'm not sure whether we did it in-house or through an outside team.

I'm not sure.

The test tree makes for quick work of choosing which tests you want to run at any time. Whether it's all or nothing, I can re-run parts of a test suite without having to start over again.

The Object Spy has surpassed any other "spy" tools I have ever used. It allows me to input parameters without having to write a quick Visual Basic script around it to try it. Diving deep into object trees can be made a breeze with the search function.

I would like to see improved language support, with Python being my

first choice. Visual Basic is outdated, where C# has been its

replacement for years.

This solution has been in use for almost three years, since I started working at this company. It has been mostly stable with static test cases, and only minor maintenance. The updates typically are changing search criteria. We upgraded from v9 about one year ago.

Technical support has been good. There was an issue where certain installations of TestComplete would give an ambiguous error on startup. After teleconferencing with one of their support specialists, we were able to solve it. Forum support on their community site has also been good.

No previous solution I know of was implemented prior to my employment here. Attempting to implement the same solution in UFT would have been nearly impossible.

The initial setup was straightforward. Licensing was simple, and getting the initial object mapping was painless. Only a high-level base set of object mapping was done.

The implementation was done entirely in-house. The projects were made from scratch, where function libraries & test suites were made from existing manual test cases.

• Dynamic Find methods
  • FindChild
  • FindAllChildren
  • FindAll
• Keys method
• Project variables
• Time delay methods

It helped to automate all the possible functional test cases which I previously used to do by manual testing.

I have used it for Web Application automation and sometimes find difficulties while recognizing dynamically-generated runtime object.

• Initially support for flex/flash technologies, but since that project ended my primary use is Functional Automation against a web front-end built on AngularJS.
• I use VBScript for a majority of my tests; it is one of many language choices available when writing scripts.
• Out of the box support for desktop, mobile and web.

I am the only test engineer on the project, so time is limited in terms of automation development. Using TestComplete I was able to immediately (after installation) begin coding regression tests for available functionality.

My current suite of tests numbers in the hundreds, and each test involves several UI elements. Depending on how your organization defines a test you may call this one test or many. An example to quantify this, is as follows - Automated Build Viability (smoke test) execution:

• Number of tests = 75
• Automated Time to execute = 15 minutes
• Manual Time to execute = 360 minutes (approx.)
• Automation time saved = 345 minutes (5+ hours)
• 2300% improvement

I have substantially reduced the amount of time it takes for regression and build viability activities.

I pay for support and maintenance; having used the “support” functions through online forums, I can say there is room for improvement. I would like to have access directly to TestComplete developers as opposed to “users” who have some level of expertise with the platform.

I've used it for two years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

5/10, there are knowledgeable users in the forums, but I would like to go straight to the TestComplete staff with solution questions. That said, I have had very little need for product or development specific support.

Other tools were evaluated which supported Flex/Flash web apps, but we chose TestComplete for its rich feature set as well as Smartbear’s available suite of tools outside of Automated Testing.

It was very straightforward! You just need to install and begin, no special plugins or out of the ordinary system requirements were necessary.

We implemented it in-house. As with any automation platform, carefully planning the intended usage, understanding the technology under test and determining which features will be used are critical to success.

Given the cost was minimal, the best representation of ROI from my perspective is time saved using automated tests vs. manually execution.

My current suite of tests numbers in the hundreds, and each test involves several UI elements. Depending on how your organization defines a test you may call this one test or many. An example to quantify this, is as follows - Automated Build Viability (smoke test) execution:

• Number of tests = 75
• Automated Time to execute = 15 minutes
• Manual Time to execute = 360 minutes (approx.)
• Automation time saved = 345 minutes (5+ hours)
• 2300% improvement

Our recent purchase was a single node locked license for one user which was very inexpensive. That fit our project needs and the automation strategy. The solution resides on inexpensive laptop for development and execution.