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Once a wise man said, “A product that cannot be tested is flawed”.It also applicable in software development as well, Let me re-figure it – “A software that cannot be tested is flawed”. The testing of software acts as an important role in every software development approach, it improves the quality and value of the software against the client. In an era of automation, I’m introducing you guys with Katalon Studio-Intelligent test automation tool. In this blog, we will learn about Katalon Studio – What is a katalon studio, Why should we use it and What makes Katalon Studio more powerful than any other Frameworks?

What is Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is a simple and powerful automation solution built for testers everywhere. Katalon Studio revolutionizes the use of open-source test automation frameworks such as Selenium and Appium by eliminating their technical complexities to allow developers and QAs to efficiently set up, create, run, report, and manage their automated tests. It also offers a viable alternative to commercial test automation solutions that are not affordable to many small and medium-sized teams.

It is a free and robust automation solution for API, Web, and Mobile testing. It integrates all necessary components with built-in keywords and project templates into a complete automation framework. Katalon Studio is easy to use for beginners but still offers advanced capabilities for experienced users. This solution is trusted by an active community of over 150K users from 150+ countries around the world.

Key-Features of Katalon Studio

Simple Hassle-free deployment: A single, cohesive deployment package contains everything you need to deploy a powerful test automation tool
Quick & easy set-up: Not only providing simple installation, but Katalon Studio also makes it is easy to set up the environment. testers can run their first test script quite quickly using its pre-built templates and test scripts, such as object repositories and keyword libraries.
Better & Faster results: Built-in templates with clear tutorials help testers quickly build and run the automation test scripts. They can perform every single step with speed and efficiency, from project setup, test creation, execution, report generating, and maintenance.
Flexible modes: New testers can use recording and keywords to build automation tests, while expert testers have a full IDE to build advanced scripts.
Ease of use: It couldn’t be easier, even manual with minimum programming experience can also exploit its benefits with effortlessly.
Multi-OS Applications: Katalon Studio supports multiple platforms: Windows 32 and 64 (7, 8, and 10) and OS X 10.5+.

Why choosing Katalon Studio over other open source frameworks?

Katalon Studio hides all technical complexities behind the scene and provides friendly UI with the manual mode (user can drag-drop, select keywords and test objects to form test steps), but still keeps necessary weapons for more technically powerful users who are able to dig deeper into coding with the scripting mode that fully supports development conveniences like syntax highlighting, code suggestion and debugging
With Selenium, users have to go through technical guidelines for their API and integrate them into with an IDE and a preferred programming language. By contrast, Katalon Studio is built as a unified bundle which includes almost all necessary things like Java, Android SDK, Web drivers to drive browsers, and required dependencies. All you have to do is to download and install it on your computer. Minimum installation is required
While Selenium/Appium requires users to build common and reusable actions on their own, katalon Studio contains pre-defined sets of commonly used keywords or actions, users will find them enough to start implementing most test cases, but if they have more advanced or specific needs they still have a way to create custom keywords for their projects. Custom keywords are an extension of built-in keywords.

COMPARISON OF TOOLS

The table below provides a comparison of the tools based on the key features of software automation.

Features	Katalon Studio	Selenium	UFT	TestComplete
Test development platform	Cross-platform	Cross-platform	Windows	Windows
Application under test	Web, Mobile apps, API/Web services	Web apps	Windows desktop, Web, Mobile apps, API/Web services	Windows desktop, Web, Mobile apps, API/Web services
Scripting languages	Java/Groovy	Java, C#, Perl, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP	VBScript	JavaScript, Python, VBScript, JScript, Delphi, C++ and C#
Programming skills	Not required. Recommended for advanced test scripts	Advanced skills needed to integrate various tools	Not required. Recommended for advanced test scripts	Not required. Recommended for advanced test scripts
Learning curves	Medium	High	Medium	Medium
Ease of installation and use	Easy to set up and run	Require installing and integrating various tools	Easy to set up and run	Easy to set up and run
Script creation time	Quick	Slow	Quick	Quick
Object storage and maintenance	Built-in object repository, XPath, object re-identification	XPath, UI Maps	Built-in object repository, smart object detection, and correction	Built-in object repository, detecting common objects
Image-based testing	Built-in support	Require installing additional libraries	Built-in support, image-based object recognition	Built-in support
DevOps/ALM integrations	Many	No (require additional libraries)	Many	Many
Continuous integrations	Popular CI tools (e.g. Jenkins, TeamCity)	Various CI tools (e.g. Jenkins, Cruise Control)	Various CI tools (e.g. Jenkins, HP Quality Center)	Various CI tools (e.g. Jenkins, HP Quality Center)
Test Analytics	Katalon Analytics	No	No	No
Product support	Community, Business support service, Dedicated staff	Open source community	Dedicated staff, Community	Dedicated staff, Community
License type	Freeware	Open source (Apache 2.0)	Proprietary	Proprietary
Cost	Free	Free	License and maintenance fees	License and maintenance fees

Katalon studio minimizes the efforts of automation teams and individual testers in setting up a new project. It is very easy for them to execute the test cases and monitor the executed results. Each workflow provides ample customization for extremely easy maintenance and project scale-up :

Pre-defined structure of test artifacts such as test cases, test suites, test objects, reports and more helps testers reduce their time in defining and maintaining them later.
Custom keywords facilitate the flexible integration of additional keywords to test the AUT efficiently, for categorical and involute testing purposes.
Supports major testing needs: Web, Mobile, and API.
Provision to execute multiple test suites at once with test suite accumulation.
Permits effortless elongation of current CI flow with console mode execution. Executing a command line can be engendered efficiently utilizing ‘Generate Command Line for console mode’ feature.
Monitor execution results seamlessly in Table or Tree view during/after execution.
Detailed Test Suite reports can be generated that reduces the time taken to analyze results. The same can be exported in a different format such as CSV, PDF, HTML and stored for later use.

Record and Playback Feature on Mobile and Web

Isn’t it cool to record your mobile app actions and organize test objects with ease? With Selenium, this is not possible without utilizing third-party libraries. Katalon work-room is sharp enough to grasp net structure elements by making an adjustment to the test purpose properties with its built-in methods (Integrate/Abstract purpose Property) at run-time. Hold on!! Not just recording your actions performed on web applications, but with Katalon Studio, you can record your mobile app actions as well!

Installing and Setting up Katalon Studio

Download Katalon Studio

Katalon Studio is available for free, supporting both Windows and Mac. Visit the Katalon Studio website to download the latest version.

Environment Configuration

First, you need to verify if your computer meets the System Requirements to automate using Katalon Studio.

For Web UI automation, no additional settings are needed except making sure the required browsers are installed. Check this list for all supported browsers.

Note: in case you are Windows users, you may want to disable the User Access Control (UAC) settings so that Katalon Studio can launch Chrome/Firefox browsers properly. Refer to this guide for steps to disable the UAC settings on different Windows.

For Mobile app automation, you need to install Node.js and Appium and enable the USB Debugging mode on your device. Please refer to the Installation Guide for more details.

Strengths

No licensing and maintenance fees required (if needed paid dedicated support services are available).
For quick test cases creation and execution important to integrate necessary frameworks and features.
Emerged on top of the Selenium framework but advanced programming skills which are required for selenium is not needed.