What is Katalon Platform?
The Katalon Platform is a comprehensive software quality management platform developed by Katalon, Inc. This modern platform is built on top of the open-source automation frameworks Selenium and Appium, providing automation teams with a powerful and user-friendly automation testing solution for web, API, mobile, and desktop applications, all in one place.
One of the major strengths of the Katalon Platform is that it enables automation teams to create, maintain, and manage test scripts, all in 1 place, without the need for coding. For more experienced users who desire customization, the platform also offers a full-code scripting interface option that supports Groovy (Java).
Katalon Platform offers a record-and-playback feature, allowing testers to auto-capture test objects, properties, and locators for faster test authoring. There is also a built-in artifact architecture that includes templates for test cases, test suites, test objects, and reports. These artifacts can be reused across APIs, web, and mobile platforms, enabling testers to quickly create tests for repetitive scenarios without having to build everything from scratch.
Furthermore, the Katalon Platform has a cloud-based test execution feature that allows testers to run their test scripts in parallel across a wide range of devices and operating systems.
Finally, after executing automated tests, Katalon Platform provides real-time visibility and actionable insights through detailed test analytics, bringing testers and QA managers the resources they need to make informed decisions.
Katalon Platform use cases
The Katalon Platform is highly versatile with a wide multitude of use cases:
1. Industries
Katalon Platform can be used across a wide range of industries. Some of the most common industries include (but are not limited to) Banking, Finance, Insurance (BFIS), Tech, Telecommunications, Retail, Pharma, Government, Education.
Industries with business models centered on high functionality, stability, digital presence, or top-notch user experience can benefit from adopting the Katalon Platform. A notable example is Liberty Latin America, a leading telecommunications company in over 20 countries, who has increased their regression test coverage by 60% while cutting regression testing time by 50% upon adopting Katalon Platform.
2. Application Under Tests
The Katalon Platform can be used to test various aspects of web, mobile, desktop applications, and API. For web testing, the Katalon Platform fully inherits Selenium capabilities with extra features such as wait-time control, recording utility, and custom keywords for fast test authoring.
For API testing, Katalon Platform supports all types of REST, SOAP/1.1 and SOAP/1.2 requests, and you can import your tests from Swagger, Postman, and WSDL.
For desktop application testing, with the Spy Windows feature, Katalon Platform can analyze and capture desktop application objects, and subsequently add them to object repositories, streamlining the test creation process.
3. Testing types
Testers can automate a wide range of testing types using the Katalon Platform, including but not limited to regression testing, or integration testing. The great part is that they can execute these test types from 1 place, without having to constantly switch from one tool to another.
4. Testing environment
With the Katalon Platform, testers can easily test on various operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. The platform also supports a range of web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge as well as mobile devices (Android and iOS). This is particularly useful when testing web applications with a user interface as it allows testers to verify that the application functions correctly across different browsers.
Katalon Review: Key features
1. All-in-one testing
Katalon Platform allows testing teams to plan, author, execute test scripts, then generate test analytics for more informed decision-making, all in 1 place. Katalon Platform brings value to the entire QA team, through all stages of the testing life cycle, from Planning, Authoring, Organizing, to Executing and Analyzing.
2. Object Spy & Object Repository
With the Katalon Platform’s Object Spy feature, testers can inspect and capture UI elements and their properties in real-time from the application being tested. These elements will then be added to the Object Repository, where testers can easily name and categorize them into folders for later use.
For example, here we can copy and paste the URL of the AUT and click “Start” to begin capturing. Simply right click on the element and select “Capture Object”. The object will appear in the “Capture Object” dialog box. You can save these objects to the Object Repository.
The Object Repository is essentially a simple and centralized location for storing and managing UI elements and properties captured. These objects can be reused across multiple test cases. What’s even better is that changes made to an object are automatically propagated to all test cases using that object, ensuring consistency and reducing maintenance effort.
3. AI-augmented automation testing
Katalon Platform AI/ML to dynamically update the test scripts when changes are made to the application. If Katalon fails to find an object with its default locator, it will try other pre-configured locators associated with that object.
Another AI-based feature of Katalon Platform is the Smart Wait feature, which can determine the optimal time to wait for a web application to respond before executing the next step in the test script. This feature helps testers create stable and reliable test scripts that can handle network delays and other performance issues.
4. Record-and-playback
This feature enables users to create automated test cases by recording their interactions with the application and generating corresponding test scripts based on those interactions. It simplifies and speeds up the process of creating automated tests as no coding is needed.
In this example, the action of logging into a website, login in, and making an appointment is recorded. Advanced testers who want to manually input the selectors have the option to choose between CSS and XPath modes.
Pros of using Katalon Platform
1. Comprehensive Test Automation Solution
The Katalon Platform offers a complete test automation solution that satisfies the needs of testing teams and organizations, providing them with both functional and visual automation testing capabilities in one platform. Once all tests have been executed, Katalon Platform provides analytics features that can help you to extract meaningful insights for improving your test performance. This flexibility is what makes Katalon Platform stand out from all of its competitors.
2. AI-powered Functionality
Katalon’s AI/ML features enable QA teams to test more quickly and effectively. Smart Wait and Self-healing, two of Katalon’s AI features, making automation tests more intelligent and resilient against changes, significantly reducing test maintenance efforts.
3. Extensive Integrations Ecosystem
The Katalon Platform enables integration across all stages of the Software Testing Life Cycle. Straight from the planning stage, testers can seamlessly connect their favorite collaboration tools, such as Teams or Slack, to achieve maximum transparency.
After that, Katalon Platform gives you access to many Jira, Git, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, and many more, to make your test authoring, orchestrating, test management, and test execution simpler. The Katalon Platform also integrates with many cloud-based testing services, such as Sauce Labs, which gains users access to a wide range of real-world testing environments.
4. User-Friendly with Abundant Learning Resources
Katalon Platform is simple and easy to learn. Its low-code capabilities allow testers to quickly adapt to the product and meet business needs. Katalon Academy offers free resources for new testers to learn how to use the platform. There are also numerous courses available on YouTube, Coursera, and Udemy.
A good course to get started with the Katalon Platform is Getting Started With The Katalon Platform. You can also learn almost everything you need to start testing with Katalon at the Getting Started page.
5. Flexible Pricing
Katalon offers flexible pricing including free-forever tiers, allowing anyone to experiment with the Platform. The Enterprise version offers more advanced capabilities such as AI/ML functionality, visual testing, on-cloud testing, and many more exciting features.. Individual testers can experiment with the free license and gradually progress to higher plans as they scale.
Cons of using Katalon Platform
1. Commercial Platform
Katalon Platform is a commercial automation testing platform, so if you want to utilize all of the powerful features this Platform has to offer, you should consider going for a subscription, which is available on both a monthly and yearly basis. If you want to experiment with the Platform and test simple scenarios, there is always the Free Forever tier, which in itself has significant value already.
2. Limited Scripting Language Support
Katalon Platform only supports Java and Groovy programming languages for test automation, which may require a learning curve from teams that don’t have experience with these languages. Testers who are already proficient in Java and Groovy can easily utilize the powerful features of Katalon Platform to author test scripts.
This language limitation is actually common in many commercial automation testing tools since their primary focus was the features that help you boost testing efficiency. For a more diverse language support, you can consider the open-source frameworks.
3. Performance Issues
Some users have reported experiencing performance issues with Katalon Platform, such as freezing, lagging, and problems with object verification. However, Katalon has been addressing these issues in recent updates, with the latest version 8.2 showing improved performance and stability.
4. Limited Community Support
As a relatively new product on the market, Katalon Platform’s community is smaller than some of its more established competitors. This may mean that users could face a shortage of resources and support for specific Katalon-related issues on platforms like StackOverflow.
However, as the product matures and its community grows, more support will become available. There is the Customer Support team at Katalon ready to answer any questions you have. If you need to know more about any specific features of Katalon, you can always find tutorials on YouTube.
Katalon vs Selenium
Katalon and Selenium are both incredibly popular in the automation testing world, offering robust features serving testers of varying needs. There are still some key differences between Katalon Platform and Selenium that you need to consider:
1. Ease of use
Katalon Platform already has everything that you need. It is designed to be user-friendly and offers a low-code approach to test automation, making it easy for testers with little to no coding experience to create and run automated tests. Experienced users can totally switch to coding mode to write scripts themselves on Katalon Platform.
On the other hand, Selenium requires a higher level of technical proficiency and coding skills to utilize all of its power. You have to create all of the testing frameworks from scratch if you choose Selenium, which takes tons of time and effort. However, being an open-source solution, Selenium has a large community of users worldwide contributing resources, documentation, forums, making the learning curve flatter.
2. Test artifact management
Katalon provides an all-in-one solution that includes test artifact management with its Object Repository, whereas Selenium does not offer such a feature, which can make your testing activities messy and disorganized when your application scales and your number of test artifacts grow.
Moreover, since applications change over time, automation test scripts and objects must be constantly updated to keep up with the adjustment. Without proper test artifact management, organizations may face significant maintenance overhead.
3. Scripting languages
Katalon supports only Java and Groovy scripting languages, while Selenium supports a wide range of languages such as Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and others. Being an open-source framework, Selenium gives testers the option to select their preferred language to write test scripts.
4. Licensing
Katalon offers a free version as well as paid enterprise editions, while Selenium is an open-source tool that is completely free to use. Therefore, Selenium is accessible to anyone, and you can further extend Selenium’s capabilities through Selenium’s plugins. Katalon Platform, on the other hand, requires initial investment, but QA teams can get started quickly with tons of built-in features.
Ultimately, the choice between Katalon and Selenium depends on your specific testing needs and the technical proficiency of your team. Katalon offers an all-in-one solution that is easy to use and offers test case management, while Selenium is a more flexible and powerful tool that requires more technical knowledge to use effectively.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Katalon Platform is a comprehensive test automation tool that offers a wide range of features and functionalities for automated testing. With its user-friendly interface, support for multiple programming languages, and integrations with popular testing frameworks, Katalon provides a powerful and flexible solution for teams looking to streamline their testing process and improve the quality of their software.