Affordable End-to-End (UI) Test Automation

End-to-End Test Automation is far more affordable than most people think.

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In various software testing survey, a common response (at least over two decades): “We don’t do End to end test automation because we can’t afford it”. This, in my opinion, is a weak excuse.

Twenty years ago, affordability was a concern for software teams to consider E2E test automation. For example, IBM’s Rational Functional Tester (RFT) license cost $11,000 in 2013. The so-called industry leading HP QuickTest Pro (QTP) was even more expensive.

A common strategy among commercial test automation vendors was to lock users into proprietary test scripts and tightly integrate frameworks with their tools. That’s why terms like “QuickTest Pro tests” became common. However, this is no longer the case.

The once-dominant QTP changed hands and was rebranded as MicroFocus UFT, which is rarely mentioned today. IBM RFT has faded even further into obscurity. In 2018, Microsoft also deprecated its commercial test automation tool: Coded UI Test in favour of Selenium WebDriver (recently changed to Playwright).

“Why we are deprecating Coded UI Test? Open source UI testing tools…