Appium vs HockeyApp

Overview

HockeyApp

Stacks164

Followers158

Votes38

Appium

Stacks650

Followers574

Votes28

GitHub Stars20.8K

Forks6.2K

Appium vs HockeyApp: What are the differences?

Appium and HockeyApp are two popular tools used in mobile app development. appium is an open-source tool for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS and Android platforms, while HockeyApp is a platform for app distribution, crash reporting, and analytics for beta and production apps.

Purpose: Appium is primarily used for automated testing of mobile applications, offering capabilities for writing tests in various programming languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby. On the other hand, HockeyApp focuses on app distribution, crash reporting, and user feedback collection, making it more suitable for managing app versions and monitoring app performance in real-time.
Platform Support: Appium supports a wide range of platforms including iOS, Android, and desktop applications. It provides a single API that can automate both native and hybrid mobile apps, making it versatile for testing different app types. In contrast, HockeyApp focuses solely on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows platforms, offering a narrower scope of support compared to Appium.
Development Lifecycle Integration: Appium is commonly integrated into the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to automate testing processes and ensure code quality. It works well with popular CI tools such as Jenkins and Bamboo. In contrast, HockeyApp is more integrated into the app distribution process, providing capabilities for beta testing, user feedback collection, and crash analytics to improve app quality before release.
Licensing and Cost: Appium is an open-source tool, freely available for users without any licensing fees. This makes it a cost-effective choice for teams looking to automate mobile testing without additional costs. On the other hand, HockeyApp offers different pricing plans based on the features required, such as basic distribution, analytics, and enterprise support, which may involve additional costs for organizations.
Community Support: Appium has a large and active community of developers and testers contributing to the tool's development, providing a wealth of resources, documentation, and support forums for users. This community-driven approach ensures rapid updates, bug fixes, and new features to meet evolving testing needs. HockeyApp, while supported by Microsoft, may have a smaller community compared to Appium, which could impact the availability of resources and support for users.
Customization and Extensibility: Appium allows users to customize test scripts and extend its capabilities through plugins and integrations with different tools and frameworks. This flexibility enables teams to tailor their test automation processes to specific requirements and integrate Appium with existing testing tools. Meanwhile, HockeyApp offers customization options for app distribution and crash reporting, allowing users to configure alerts, notifications, and workflows to suit their needs.

In Summary, Appium and HockeyApp differ in their primary purposes, platform support, integration in the development lifecycle, licensing models, community support, and customization options for mobile app testing and deployment.

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Detailed Comparison

HockeyApp	Appium
HockeyApp is the best way to collect live crash reports, get feedback from your users, distribute your betas, and analyze your test coverage.	Appium is an open source test automation framework for use with native, hybrid, and mobile web apps. It drives iOS and Android apps using the WebDriver protocol. Appium is sponsored by Sauce Labs and a thriving community of open source developers.
Crash Reports- HockeyApp offers the most reliable and complete crash reporting for beta and App Store versions using open source frameworks. Providing full server-side symbolication with class names, methods, line numbers, and automatic grouping of similar crash reports.;Feedback- HockeyApp allows you to communicate with your customers. Users can create a support request, post an idea, or discuss a problem right from within the app.;Distribution- Upload your beta versions to HockeyApp and distribute them to your beta testers. Integrate our open-source SDK and your app will automatically be able to detect updates and offer the updates right within the app.Analytics- By integrating our SDK into your app, you'll get advanced metrics to get a better overview of the testing for your app. See which devices were tested, which testers used the app for how long, and which language was tested.	Works on native and hybrid mobile apps; Write mobile tests using any language or framework; Open source; Facilitates mobile continuous integration; Mobile test automation tool; Cross-platform (iOS, Android); Framework based on Selenium
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 20.8K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 6.2K
Stacks 164	Stacks 650
Followers 158	Followers 574
Votes 38	Votes 28
Pros & Cons
Pros 17 Crash analytics 11 Cross-platform 5 Mobile application distribution 2 JIRA Integration 2 Open source	Pros 12 Webdriverio support 6 Java, C#, Python support 3 Open source 2 Active community 2 Great GUI with inspector
Integrations
Hipmob	Sauce Labs

What are some alternatives to HockeyApp, Appium?

TestFlight

With TestFlight, developers simply upload a build, and the testers can install it directly from their device, over the air.

TestFairy

When testing apps in the crowd, you never know what exactly was done, and what went wrong on the client side. TestFairy shows you a video of the exact test that was done, including CPU, memory, GPS, network and a lot more.

Beta by Crashlytics

A streamlined solution for distributing apps that gives you a single, cross-platform toolset for iOS and Android, and a delightful, effortless onboarding for your testers.

Fabric by Twitter

Installing and managing a wide range of SDKs can be cumbersome and complex. Fabric solves this problem by combining all seven of our SDKs under one roof and organizing them into three Kits: the Crashlytics Kit, the Twitter Kit, and the MoPub Kit.

EarlGrey

EarlGrey is a native iOS UI automation test framework that enables you to write clear, concise tests. With the EarlGrey framework, you have access to enhanced synchronization features. EarlGrey automatically synchronizes with the UI, network requests, and various queues; but still allows you to manually implement customized timings, if needed.

Kobiton

It enables developers and testers to perform automated and manual testing of mobile apps and websites on real devices. Modern DevOps and Quality environments require apps to be tested on hundreds of device/OS/browser combinations. Managing an in-house device-lab is expensive, resource intensive, restrictive and very manual. Kobiton allows for instant provisioning of real devices for testing with automated or manual scripts, and also allows current on-premise devices to be plugged in to form a holistic testing cloud.

Kiwi

It is a Behavior Driven Development library for iOS development. The goal is to provide a BDD library that is exquisitely simple to setup and use.

pCloudy

It is a smart mobile app testing solution that lets developers ensure their users enjoy a smooth and consistent experience. With it, developers can access manual and automated testing options to facilitate the swift debugging of their applications.

Magneto

Magneto was built by Automation Engineers for Automation Engineers out of necessity for a mobile centric test automation framework that's easy to setup, run and utilize.

Experitest

It allows users to create and run Appium, Selenium, XCUITest & Espresso tests against real devices and web browsers. Users can create & execute hundreds of manual or automated tests in parallel on IOS & Android devices. Users can automate their cross-browser testing, perform visual testing and access advanced analytics.

Related Comparisons

Appium vs HockeyApp: What are the differences?

Purpose: Appium is primarily used for automated testing of mobile applications, offering capabilities for writing tests in various programming languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby. On the other hand, HockeyApp focuses on app distribution, crash reporting, and user feedback collection, making it more suitable for managing app versions and monitoring app performance in real-time.
Platform Support: Appium supports a wide range of platforms including iOS, Android, and desktop applications. It provides a single API that can automate both native and hybrid mobile apps, making it versatile for testing different app types. In contrast, HockeyApp focuses solely on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows platforms, offering a narrower scope of support compared to Appium.
Development Lifecycle Integration: Appium is commonly integrated into the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to automate testing processes and ensure code quality. It works well with popular CI tools such as Jenkins and Bamboo. In contrast, HockeyApp is more integrated into the app distribution process, providing capabilities for beta testing, user feedback collection, and crash analytics to improve app quality before release.
Licensing and Cost: Appium is an open-source tool, freely available for users without any licensing fees. This makes it a cost-effective choice for teams looking to automate mobile testing without additional costs. On the other hand, HockeyApp offers different pricing plans based on the features required, such as basic distribution, analytics, and enterprise support, which may involve additional costs for organizations.
Community Support: Appium has a large and active community of developers and testers contributing to the tool's development, providing a wealth of resources, documentation, and support forums for users. This community-driven approach ensures rapid updates, bug fixes, and new features to meet evolving testing needs. HockeyApp, while supported by Microsoft, may have a smaller community compared to Appium, which could impact the availability of resources and support for users.
Customization and Extensibility: Appium allows users to customize test scripts and extend its capabilities through plugins and integrations with different tools and frameworks. This flexibility enables teams to tailor their test automation processes to specific requirements and integrate Appium with existing testing tools. Meanwhile, HockeyApp offers customization options for app distribution and crash reporting, allowing users to configure alerts, notifications, and workflows to suit their needs.

Appium vs HockeyApp

Overview