BrowserStack vs Rainforest QA vs Sauce Labs

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BrowserStack

2.7K
2K
+ 1
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Rainforest QA

39
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+ 1
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Sauce Labs

312
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+ 1
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BrowserStack vs Rainforest QA vs Sauce Labs: What are the differences?

  1. Integration with Testing Frameworks: BrowserStack provides seamless integration with popular testing frameworks like Selenium, Appium, and Espresso, allowing testers to write scripts in their preferred language. Rainforest QA, on the other hand, does not have direct integration with testing frameworks but offers a codeless testing approach. Sauce Labs offers integration with Selenium, Appium, and other open-source testing frameworks, providing flexibility to teams with different automation requirements.

  2. Testing Infrastructure: BrowserStack offers a vast grid of real devices, browsers, and operating systems for testing, enabling comprehensive test coverage. Rainforest QA offers VM-based testing environments that are managed by their platform, simplifying the setup process. Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based testing infrastructure with a wide range of browser and device combinations to test applications across different environments quickly.

  3. Automated Testing vs. Manual Testing: BrowserStack primarily focuses on automated testing, providing a robust platform for running automation scripts in parallel across multiple environments. Rainforest QA emphasizes manual testing with a crowdtesting approach, leveraging real testers to execute test cases and provide qualitative feedback. Sauce Labs supports both automated and manual testing, giving teams the flexibility to choose the testing approach that suits their needs.

  4. Scalability: BrowserStack offers scalable testing infrastructure that can handle large-scale test automation projects efficiently. Rainforest QA provides scaling capabilities through its crowd of testers but may have limitations in executing tests at a massive scale. Sauce Labs offers scalability features by allowing users to run tests in parallel on a cloud-based infrastructure, accommodating varying load requirements.

  5. Reporting and Analytics: BrowserStack provides detailed reports and analytics on test execution, performance metrics, and test coverage, empowering teams to make data-driven decisions. Rainforest QA offers comprehensive reporting on test results, test coverage, and historical data to track testing progress effectively. Sauce Labs provides detailed insights into test results, performance metrics, and trends, helping teams identify issues and optimize testing strategies.

  6. Collaboration Features: BrowserStack offers collaborative testing features like real-time interactive testing, test sharing, and team management functionalities for efficient collaboration among team members. Rainforest QA offers collaboration tools for creating and managing test suites, sharing test results, and gathering feedback from stakeholders. Sauce Labs provides collaboration features such as test sharing, live testing, and access controls to facilitate teamwork in testing projects.

In Summary, BrowserStack, Rainforest QA, and Sauce Labs differ in terms of integration with testing frameworks, testing infrastructure, focus on automated vs. manual testing, scalability, reporting and analytics capabilities, and collaboration features.

Advice on BrowserStack, Rainforest QA, and Sauce Labs

I am looking to purchase one of these tools for Mobile testing for my team. It should support Native, hybrid, and responsive app testing. It should also feature debugging, parallel execution, automation testing/easy integration with automation testing tools like Selenium, and the capability to provide availability of devices specifically for us to use at any time with good speed of performing all these activities.

I have already used Perfecto mobile, and Sauce Labs in my other projects before. I want to know how different or better is AWS Device farm in usage and how advantageous it would be for us to use it over other mentioned tools

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Replies (3)
Aaron Evans
Testing Strategist at One Shore · | 3 upvotes · 6.4K views

A SaaS offering like Sauce Labs (or BrowserStack or LambdaTest, etc) will provide a remote Selenium/Appium Grid including the ability to run test automation in parallel (up to the amount based your subscription level) an a wide array of browsers and mobile devices.

These tools can be expensive, but if you can afford them, the expertise and effort of maintaining the grid, browser updates, etc. is worth it.

AWS Device Farm can be significantly cheaper, but is much more work to setup and run. It will not give you as many devices, or the reporting and screen/video capture you get with the the services. And there is no support for AWS Device Farm, and very poor documentation. I have used it, but do not recommend it. Running your own grid and physical device lab is better, but I'd stick with a service like Sauce Labs or Perfecto which will save you time and give you better services despite the higher price tag.

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Stability - Just works. Availability - More than 15 datacenters. Enterprise features like SSO, local testing and SOC2/GDPR compliant.

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Jaymie Falconi
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BitBarBitBar

BitBar's Dedicated Devices would be a great option for you. It allows you to dedicate (reserve) devices for your use only which also having access to all of the devices in the shared cloud. BitBar has the features and integrations that you are looking for as well.

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Pros of BrowserStack
Pros of Rainforest QA
Pros of Sauce Labs
  • 134
    Multiple browsers
  • 75
    Ease of use
  • 63
    Real browsers
  • 43
    Ability to use it locally
  • 26
    Good price
  • 20
    Great web interface
  • 18
    IE support
  • 16
    Official mobile emulators
  • 14
    Cloud-based access
  • 14
    Instant access
  • 11
    Real mobile devices
  • 7
    Selenium compatible
  • 7
    Screenshots
  • 7
    Multiple Desktop OS
  • 6
    Can be used for Testing and E2E
  • 5
    Pre-installed developer tools
  • 4
    Video of test runs
  • 3
    Favourites
  • 3
    Supports Manual, Functional and Visual Diff Testing
  • 3
    Webdriver compatible
  • 3
    Many browsers
  • 2
    Cypress Compatible
  • 2
    Unify and track test cases
  • 2
    Free for Open Source
  • 2
    Bi-directional Jira Sync
  • 2
    Test automation dashboard
  • 2
    Test Management
  • 2
    Cross-browser testing
  • 1
    Real devices
  • 1
    Speed is fast
  • 0
    Web accessibility
  • 0
    Test WCAG Compliance
  • 0
    Visual testing and review
  • 13
    Cross-browser testing
  • 7
    Powerful API
  • 7
    QA
  • 7
    Super-simple test creation
  • 6
    Easy way to get real front-end smoke tests
  • 5
    Simple
  • 5
    CI Integration
  • 3
    Manual regression testing results in 30 mins
  • 60
    Selenium-compatible
  • 46
    Webdriver compatible
  • 35
    Video recordings of every test
  • 31
    Qa
  • 29
    Mobile support
  • 26
    Any programming language
  • 23
    Developer tools
  • 21
    Test local and firewalled servers
  • 20
    Jenkins integration
  • 18
    Pristine VMs
  • 17
    CI Compatible
  • 11
    Appium support
  • 9
    Parallel testing
  • 8
    Rapid environment preparation
  • 8
    Mobile device support
  • 7
    Easy testing on almost any device
  • 7
    Allows me to Focus more test automation rather than IT
  • 6
    Secure testing and easy setup
  • 5
    Easy setup with CI and fast automated tests
  • 5
    Quick support response
  • 4
    Fast and reliable to host the automated tests
  • 4
    Easy to setup and understand,
  • 3
    Easy setup and integration with Travis Ci
  • 3
    Maintained browser matrix
  • 3
    Easy onboarding, do not need to manager VMs/OS/Browsers
  • 2
    Efficient tool to verify product quality
  • 2
    Teamcity Integration and mobile testing win
  • 2
    Hany for platform testing
  • 2
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Generous free trial
  • 2
    Easy. Straightforward. Scalable
  • 2
    Great way to integrate test suite on cloud
  • 2
    Simplicity of Sauce-connect
  • 1
    Very Good, Quick, flexible Infrastructure Support
  • 1
    It's great for my QA work
  • 1
    Awesome tech support
  • 1
    Having this available for CI servers is fantastic
  • 1
    Amazing service to do cloud cross browser testing
  • 1
    Depth of integrations
  • 1
    Because of its cloud based support for appium
  • 1
    Easy setup, Works great with selenium.
  • 1
    QE support
  • 1
    Manuals are not very well versed for beginners
  • 1
    Secure testing
  • 1
    Cheaper than browserstack
  • 1
    Stable
  • 0
    Simple to set up and integrate so many browser configs

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Cons of BrowserStack
Cons of Rainforest QA
Cons of Sauce Labs
  • 2
    Very limited choice of minor versions
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 2
      Relatively slow
    • 2
      Expensive

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is BrowserStack?

    BrowserStack is the leading test platform built for developers & QAs to expand test coverage, scale & optimize testing with cross-browser, real device cloud, accessibility, visual testing, test management, and test observability.

    What is Rainforest QA?

    Rainforest gives you the reliability of a QA team and the speed of automation, without the hassle of managing a team or the pain of writing automated tests.

    What is Sauce Labs?

    Cloud-based automated testing platform enables developers and QEs to perform functional, JavaScript unit, and manual tests with Selenium or Appium on web and mobile apps. Videos and screenshots for easy debugging. Secure and CI-ready.

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    What are some alternatives to BrowserStack, Rainforest QA, and Sauce Labs?
    Browserling
    We run the browsers on our servers. Fully interactive sessions, not static screenshots. No flash, no applets, nothing to install. Powered entirely by <canvas> and javascript.
    LambdaTest
    LambdaTest platform provides secure, scalable and insightful test orchestration for website, and mobile app testing. Customers at different points in their DevOps lifecycle can leverage Automation and/or Manual testing on LambdaTest.
    Ghost Inspector
    It lets you create and manage UI tests that check specific functionality in your website or application. We execute these automated browser tests continuously from the cloud and alert you if anything breaks.
    AWS Device Farm
    Run tests across a large selection of physical devices in parallel from various manufacturers with varying hardware, OS versions and form factors.
    Appium
    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.
    See all alternatives