Software is the fulcrum of our modern world. It’s so deeply ingrained in our daily lives that a single bug in our apps is enough to disrupt how we function.
Do you remember when a faulty software update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused approximately 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide to crash with a “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) in July 2024? That caused an estimated loss of $10 billion in damages!
That’s why automated software testing is so important.
While manual testing has its place in the process, you must be able to run specific tests using automation. Automating the management and tracking of tests is called test automation—and that’s what the test this guide is about.
We’ll discuss what it is, its types, tools, and what to consider when implementing test automation.
Let’s dive in.
What is Test Automation?
Test automation involves using software tools, scripts, and frameworks to automate various aspects of the testing life cycle, including test case creation, execution, result analysis, reporting, and defect tracking.
Its fundamental goal is to boost efficiency, accuracy, and consistency by integrating automation into the software development life cycle (SDLC).
Automated software testing can handle many repetitive but necessary tasks and enable manual testing that would be difficult or impossible. For example, you can write Selenium scripts to automate web UI testing or use JUnit or TestNG for automated unit testing.
Or, implement CI/CD pipelines with automated tests. Additionally, cloud-based automation testing enables teams to execute tests across multiple environments without the limitations of physical infrastructure, ensuring broader test coverage and faster feedback loops.
When Should You Automate? (And When You Shouldn’t)
Not every test should be automated; knowing when to use automation effectively is key to optimizing your testing efforts.
Let’s take a look at the tests you should automate:
- Regression testing is one of the best candidates for automation because it ensures that new code changes don’t break existing features.
- Performance and load testing also benefit because they require running thousands of operations under different conditions, something manual testing can’t efficiently handle.
- API testing is another strong example since APIs require frequent validation as integrations evolve. automated testing helps catch issues early, saving time and reducing errors in production.
Now, let’s review the tests that shouldn’t be automated:
- Exploratory testing, which relies on human intuition, should be best left to manual testers.
- UI/UX testing, where you must assess how a real user interacts with an app, also doesn’t fit well with automation.
- Lastly, if your test cases change frequently, such as in the early stages of development, automating them too soon can result in high maintenance costs without much return.
Key Components of Test Automation
- A structured set of guidelines and best practices that define how automation scripts are created, executed, and maintained
- Automated test cases written using programming languages or automation testing tools to validate application functionality
- Managing test data for automation to ensure consistent and repeatable tests
- The component responsible for running the automation scripts on different environments, browsers, and platforms
- Automated logging and reporting of test results to track pass/fail status, logs, screenshots, and execution time
- Stores and manages test scripts, automation framework code, and configurations
- Regularly updating test scripts to accommodate application changes and ensuring automation remains scalable
Who Does Test Automation?
The test engineer or software quality assurance person must have software coding ability since the test cases are written as source code. However, some test automation tools enable test authoring through keywords instead of coding.
How to Automate a Simple Test Case
There are many ways to write a test case, and the best-suited role for this test automation is Selenium since it’s a highly versatile framework. Now, let’s write a simple Java program to automate a login function using Selenium WebDriver.
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;
public class LoginAutomation { @Test
public void login() {
// Set the path of the ChromeDriver executable
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "path/to/chromedriver");
// Initialize WebDriver
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.manage().window().maximize();
// Navigate to the TestGrid login page
driver.get("https://public.testgrid.io/");
// Locate elements and perform login
WebElement username = driver.findElement(By.id("email"));
WebElement password = driver.findElement(By.id("password"));
WebElement login = driver.findElement(By.name("submit"));
username.sendKeys("your_email");
password.sendKeys("your_password");
login.click();
// Validate login by checking the URL
String expectedUrl = "https://public.testgrid.io/";
String actualUrl = driver.getCurrentUrl();
Assert.assertEquals(actualUrl, expectedUrl);
// Close the browser
driver.quit();
}
}
Explanation of the code
- First, import all the Selenium Webdriver packages required to execute the test case.
- If you’re using the Google Chrome browser, also import the Chrome driver package.
- Structure the test using ImTestNG annotations.
- Instantiate the new Chrome driver instance to launch the browser using the System.setProperty command.
- On using driver.get() command, navigate to the TestGrid login page
- Find elements using the id locator and enter credentials and click the login button.
- When you run the code, Selenium will automatically open the Chrome browser and navigate to the login page of TestGrid.
- After that, it will log in using the appropriate credentials and check the status of the test case by comparing the URL.
- The test case checks whether the login was successful by comparing the current URL with the expected URL.
Benefits of Test Automation
If you’re still questioning why test automation is worth it, here are some automation testing benefits:
1. Faster execution
A manual tester might take several hours or even days to write and execute test cases, especially for a complex mobile or web app. With test automation, you can run thousands of tests across multiple devices and browsers in minutes.
2. Higher accuracy
When manually testing an app, it’s possible typos will error, missed steps will happen, and you’ll get tired of writing test scripts repeatedly every time there’s a modification in the code. Test automation executes the same tests with 100% precision—every single time.
3. Greater test coverage
Do you want to test every single scenario manually? Not realistic. With test automation, you can run thousands of test cases at once, including edge cases that would be impossible to check manually, and that, too, in a few clicks.
4. Cost savings
You need to hire, train, and pay experienced QA engineers for manual testing to run repetitive tests. Test automation has an upfront cost, but over time, it cuts labor costs and minimizes bug-related expenses. It saves you money in the long run.
5. Early bug detection
Fixing a bug after the app has been released is 10 times more expensive than catching it during the build. With test automation, you can run tests every time new code is pushed, catching issues before they escalate.
6. Integration with CI/CD
Test automation allows you to automate the entire dev cycle, meaning you can ensure every change is validated immediately. During manual testing, developers need instant feedback on the code, which can slow down the process considerably.
Types of Test Automation Frameworks
1. Unit testing automation
If you want to ensure every single unit of code of your app, such as a method, module, or function, performs as expected without relying on external dependencies, that’s where unit testing automation comes in.
It helps you catch errors early before they affect the broader system. It also makes it easy to refactor or extend functionality without breaking the app’s existing features. Popular tools for unit testing include JUnit for Java apps, NUnit for .NET, and Mocha for JavaScript.
2. Integration testing automation
Next comes testing the app’s multiple components or modules to ensure they work as desired. Unlike unit tests that run in isolation, integration testing verifies interactions between different app parts, such as APIs, databases, and microservices.
You can detect communication failures, data inconsistencies, and broken endpoints. Common integration testing automation tools include Postman for API testing, RestAssured for automated REST API validation, and Selenium WebDriver.
3. API testing automation
If your app relies on APIs, this test automation enables you to verify backend services and integrations – independent of the GUI implementation.
API testing is performed at the message layer since APIs serve as the primary interface to app logic. This allows you to check if they function correctly, handle requests and responses properly, and maintain security standards.
Tools like RestAssured, Postman, and Karate help in API testing automation.
4. Functional testing automation
One of your testing goals is to ensure all the features related to user interactions, workflows, and business logic perform well. Functional testing automation helps achieve that.
You can simulate real user actions, such as filling out forms, clicking buttons, and navigating through web pages with automation tools like Selenium and Cypress. For mobile apps, you can use Appium to formulate functional tests on iOS and Android devices.
Automating functional tests helps you maintain consistency, test edge cases, and speed up release cycles.
5. Smoke testing automation
Run a set of quick, high-level smoke tests to check whether the app’s critical functionalities are working after a build or deployment and if it’s stable enough for more in-depth testing.
Often called “sanity testing,” it ensures that significant app components load correctly and aren’t broken right from the start. Smoke testing automation is typically executed as part of the CI/CD pipeline using tools like Selenium, JUnit, and TestNG.
6. Regression testing automation
Conduct regression testing automation to ensure new code changes don’t introduce unintended defects in previously working functionality. Whenever a new feature is added, a bug is fixed, or an optimization is performed, it ensures existing features function as usual.
Tools like Katalon Studio, Ranorex, and Selenium help automate regression tests by recording and replaying test scripts across different app versions.
7. GUI testing automation
If your app has a Graphical User Interface (GUI), testing it is essential to ensure consistency in complex visual elements and dynamic behaviors.
Rather than manually clicking through screens, you can record and replay user actions to validate buttons, menus, and forms across different devices, screen sizes, and operating systems.
Tools like TestGrid excel at visual validation. They enable you to capture screenshots and compare them to baselines to fix UI discrepancies.
8. Security testing automation
Security testing automation is the way to go if you want to detect vulnerabilities, security flaws, and threats within an app. Test for vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injections, insecure data storage, and authentication flaws.
Ensure compliance with security standards and prevent potential cyberattacks. Popular security testing tools include Burp Suites, Nessus, and OWASP ZAP. They scan apps for vulnerabilities and generate reports with remediation steps.
9. Performance testing automation
With performance testing automation, evaluate your app’s behavior under different loads, stress conditions, and concurrent user interactions. Check for resource utilization, response times, and system stability under peak conditions.
Tools such as LoadRunner, Gatling, and JMeter enable testers to simulate thousands of users accessing an app simultaneously. They provide detailed performance metrics, such as transaction times and error rates, helping you identify bottlenecks and optimize system performance.
General Approaches to Test Automation
Although there are many approaches to test automation, two stand out:
- Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing generates UI events, such as keystrokes and mouse clicks in the app, and observes the changes that result in the user interface to validate that its observable behavior is correct.
- API-driven testing is a framework that interacts with an app’s programming interface to validate its behavior. It bypasses the UI entirely, focusing on testing public interfaces of modules, classes, or libraries. This method provides various input arguments and verifies the correctness of the returned results.
Test Automation Methodologies
To automate software testing efficiently, you need a methodology you can trust. Although there are many approaches and strategies to consider, your decision depends on several factors, such as project size, complexity, team skill set, and available tools.
Let’s take a look at the most common test automation frameworks:
1. Linear scripting
If your app is simple and doesn’t require frequent updates, this might seem like an easy solution. Here, you record user interactions with the app and play them back as automated test scripts. Since there’s no need for coding, it’s quick to get started, too.
2. Modular and framework-based testing
Have an app that’s dynamic and demands frequent updates? Go for this approach. Instead of recording everything in one go, break the test cases into smaller, reusable components or modules. Modular and framework-based testing can be sub-categorized into:
- Keyword-driven testing, which lets you define reusable actions in a structured format, making automation accessible even to non-programmers
- Data-driven testing, which separates test data from test scripts so you can test multiple scenarios easily
- Modular testing, which organizes tests into independent units
- Hybrid testing, which combines specific elements of the above three frameworks for flexibility
3. Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)
BDD works best in agile environments where multiple stakeholders, such as developers, testers, and business analysts, must collaborate. It allows you to write test cases in plain language, usually using Gherkin syntax, so everyone on your team can understand.
4. Continuous testing
This involves executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline. It helps obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with the app whenever changes are made to its code or configurations.
What’s Included in Software Testing Automation
Testing tools can automate various tasks, such as test data creation. product installation, GUI interaction, defect logging, and problem detection (e.g., using parsing or polling agents with test oracles). However, they don’t necessarily automate the end-to-end testing process.
Therefore, when considering test automation, you must meet key requirements:
- Platform and OS independence
- Support for a distributed execution environment (distributed test bed)
- Support for distributed applications (distributed SUT)
- Common driver compatibility (e.g., Ant or Maven in Java) to integrate with the workflows of developers
- Extensibility and customization (Open APIs for integration with other tools)
- Data-driven capability (input data, output data, metadata)
- Customizable reporting (DB access, Crystal Reports)
- Easy debugging and logging
- Version control friendly (minimal binary files)
- Support for unattended test runs to enable integration with build processes and CI servers
- Email notifications (e.g., bounce messages)
How to Set Up Test Automation: A Step-by-Step Process
If you want test automation to yield positive results in the long run and not break every two days, you must set it up in a structured manner. Let’s take a look at how you can do that in real-world scenarios:
1. Define your test scope and priorities
First things first – why are you automating tests?
Is it to:
- Reduce manual effort?
- Speed up regression testing?
- Improve test coverage across different browsers and devices.
Automating everything is neither cost-effective nor practical, so you must prioritize test cases. For example, in eCommerce testing, you would want to test core functionalities like adding items to the cart, completing checkout, or applying discount codes.
These workflows are repetitive and must work flawlessly every time. Automating these tests can ensure they run consistently across different releases.
2. Choose the right automation tools
Once the test scope is finalized, the next step is to select the right automation testing tools for the task. This will depend on several factors:
- The app you’re trying to test
- The programming language your team is comfortable with
- How well the tool integrates into your CI/CD pipeline
For instance, if you’re testing a web app, Selenium is a great choice because it supports various programming languages and browsers. However, Appium is a better option for automating tests for Android and iOS apps.
3. Build a strong automation framework
Once you decide on the tool, it’s time to set up the automation framework. Think of scalability from the start. Even if you have just 10 test cases today, design your framework to support 500 later.
For example, if you’re testing a travel booking app, leverage a data-driven approach where the same script runs multiple tests using different input data, such as booking flights for different dates, cities, and passenger types.
Test scripts can quickly become messy, difficult to manage, and hard to update without a framework.
4. Write and organize test scripts
The next step is to write automation scripts. When doing so, remember the following tips:
- Be modular; break it down into reusable components
- Avoid hardcoding values; instead, store data in separate files
- Use clear naming conventions so that it’s readable for future testers
For example, if you’re testing a login page, why write separate scripts for different user roles, such as admin, user, and guest? Instead, create one login script that takes different credentials from an external data file. This process will also save you a ton of time.
5. Integrate with CI/CD for continuous testing
Test automation triggers tests automatically whenever new code is pushed, catching bugs early during the build.
For example, if you work in a DevOps test environment, integrate Selenium tests into Jenkins or GitHub Actions. This means every time you commit a new code, tests will run automatically and report back.
6. Maintain and update test scripts regularly
Automation isn’t a one-time setup. As your app grows, so does the number of automated test cases. If not optimized, test suites become slow and unmanageable. For example, running a full regression suite with 1,000+ test cases may take hours.
For instance, if you redesign the checkout page, your old automation scripts might fail because element locators have changed. Therefore, to keep scripts stable:
- Use parallel test execution
- Implement test case prioritization
- Leverage self-healing automation tools
You must also review failed tests regularly, refactor test scripts to boost efficiency and keep test cases updated with app changes. And if a test keeps failing for no real reason, fix or remove it—don’t let flaky tests ruin your automation confidence.
Top Test Automation Tools in 2025
Test automation is an investment that pays off in the long when applied to stable and repetitive test cases. However, ongoing manual effort is required for script development, maintenance, and result analysis. That’s why you need a tool that can help you test your app efficiently.
Here’s a quick introduction to some popular options for automation testing.
1. TestGrid
TestGrid is an AI-powered end-to-end testing platform that helps you automate testing across different environments—web, mobile, and APIs—without requiring any coding expertise.
Since it’s a cloud-based platform where you can run automated tests on real devices and browsers, you don’t need to invest in any in-house device labs. You can, instead, execute tests in parallel, significantly reducing test execution time and ensuring reliable results.
In addition, TestGrid boosts the entire automation process by integrating with CI/CD pipelines. This means you can create, execute, and maintain test scripts with minimal effort, making it easier to scale your testing efforts.
Whether you’re focused on functional, performance, or security testing, TestGrid ensures that automation is faster, more intelligent, and cost-effective in the long run.
2. ACCELQ
AccelQ is a cloud-based platform that uses AI to automate and manage testing for web, mobile, API, database, and packaged apps. It uses a keyword-driven approach to build tests that require learning natural language prompts.
ACCELQ delivers user-friendly, centralized reports that highlight data discrepancies and errors. It complies with industry standards, including GDPR, PCI DSS, and more.
3. Appium
Appium is an open-source test automation framework primarily used to test Android and iOS mobile apps. It allows you to write automated tests for native, hybrid, and mobile web apps using various programming languages—like Python, Ruby, or Java—in a single platform.
4. Playwright
Developed by Microsoft, Playwright is an open-source framework for cross-browser automation and end-to-end web app testing. Its tests run locally on Linux, Windows, and macOS—locally or on your continuous integration pipeline, headless or headed. Playwright supports several programming languages, including JavaScript, TypeScript, .NET, and Python.
5. Selenium
Selenium is an industry-leading open-source framework for web app automation. It supports multiple programming languages like Python, C#, Java, and JavaScript. Due to its cross-browser testing compatibility, it’s easy to run tests across different browsers, such as Chrome and Safari.
6. Cypress
Cypress is an open-source JavaScript-based web app testing framework. It allows you to test modern apps directly in the browser. Its simple yet powerful API runs as fast as your browser can render content. Installing Cypress and writing your first passing test is a breeze. Cypress doesn’t require installing or configuring servers, drivers, or other dependencies.
Remember: Test Automation is an Ongoing Journey
As your app and testing needs evolve, so will your automation framework. Consider test automation as an investment for improving the quality and efficiency of your software development process. Implement the strategies and best practices outlined in this guide.
You’ll be able to streamline testing and accelerate releases—and deliver an app your users like to use. Good luck!
Source: For more details, please refer to TestGrid.
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