In the competitive world of iOS apps, a single bug can cause a great deal of harm to your app. Most apps need to be tested thoroughly before being released to production. There are a variety of tests that are recommended before an app is released. First is unit testing, which is generally done by developers. After that, manual testing is done by QA. 

‍

All this testing can be time and resource-intensive. That's where an iOS testing solution can help out. 

‍

In this post, we're going to look at eight iOS testing solutions. Most of them will provide automated testing that requires no code. But we'll look into two very popular frameworks that require us to write test frameworks: Appium and Calabash. Both of them require us to write test cases. We'll also show you how Mobot has robots do the testing for you. 

What Are iOS Testing Frameworks?

iOS testing frameworks are used to create test cases.These testing frameworks each use a different syntax to write test cases. But they also have some things in common. For example, all iOS testing frameworks have features to test things like Apple APIs. And most of them generate detailed test reports that you can use to fix the bugs in the app. 

Top iOS Testing Frameworks

We'll now look at the eight most popular iOS testing solutions in 2022. 

Appium

Appium is one of the most popular iOS testing frameworks because it can be used with a lot of other solutions. It's completely open source and free to use, and that, together with its active community for support, adds to its popularity. Appium was created by Dan Cuellar using C#. He released it in 2011 and made it open source shortly after in 2012. 

Using client libraries for languages like Java, Python, JavaScript, and PHP, we can write test cases in Appium. It's possible because it uses Selenium WebDriver APIs. Now, Selenium WebDriver APIs allow us to write test cases in any language. You can learn more about Appium here. 

Below is a sample code in Appium: 

 
text = driver.find_element_by_id('input')
assert text.get_attribute('value') is None
text.send_keys('Hello World!’)
assert 'Hello World!' == text.get_attribute('value')

‍Calabash

Calabash uses Cucumber to write test cases using plain English statements. That makes it easy to write test cases, especially for non-techies. So, here the user doesn't have to learn a programming language like Java, Python, JavaScript, or PHP to write test cases. You can learn more about Calabash here. 

Calabash supports both iOS simulator and physical devices. Below is a sample code in Calabash: 

 
Feature: Login feature  
	Scenario: As a registered user i can login to the app    
  	When I press “Login”    
    And I enter my username     
    And I enter my password    
    Then I see “You are Logged in successfully”
 

‍

TestProject

TestProject is a completely free automated testing solution. It allows you to record your test steps by interacting with the app. Here, the tester interacts as a normal user interacts with any app. After recording, the test cases will be generated automatically and we'll get the test result. So, you don't need to write test cases in a programming language. 

TestProject supports both iOS and Android devices. It can be used with both iOS simulators and real devices. However, an Apple developer account is required to test on physical devices. 

Test cases written in Appium and Selenium can be directly imported into TestProject. This allows you to reuse the test cases created earlier. You can learn more about TestProject here. 

Kobiton

Kobiton is an automated testing solution that allows you to execute automated test scripts on a lot of cloud-based devices. From the dashboard, the tester can choose a variety of physical devices on the cloud. After that, they'll interact with the app on a simulator and automated test cases will be generated. 

Kobiton also has a feature that allows you to write these test cases using Appium, Selenium, XCTest, and other frameworks. While testing, it will validate the app on different devices for UI and UX issues. You can get a list of all the devices it tests here. Kobiton will also find the performance issues, CPU spikes, and battery issues in the app. 

Kobiton is free to try, and it has varied  plans to test apps, even for startups. Its plans start at $50 per month and are well suited for startups that want to quickly find and fix bugs. You can learn more about Kobiton here. 

TestGrid

TestGrid is an automated testing platform that allows you to test apps on cloud-hosted devices. It also gives you the flexibility to add TestGrid software on the real devices in your company. You use TestGrid through the proprietary TestOS, which needs to be installed by the company using it. TestOS gives access to a lot of inbuilt automated testing scripts. 

TestGrid is a low/no-code solution that's powered by AI. Using AI, it can also make existing test cases in Appium and Selenium more robust. It also allows you to do performance and API testing, which are essential for modern apps. 

TestGrid is free to use for a lifetime. But to access cloud-hosted and real devices, you need to pay. Its plans start at $39 per month and go up to $4,799 per month, depending on the number of parallel tests. You can find more about TestGrid here. 

Zeus

Zeus is an end-to-end automated and AI-driven testing platform. It's an all-in-one solution that comes with DevOps integration. So, you can integrate it with your CI/CD pipeline. It also supports integration with Jira, Jenkins, Git, and more. 

Zeus enables developers or testers to create automated test cases from the browser. It's completely codeless and uses the thousands of available actions to create these test cases. The AI assistants help to create that perfect test plan. After this the test cases can run in parallel across iOS and Android devices. Zeus supports both cloud-based devices and real devices on the customer premises. 

Zeus has only one plan of $200 per month for most customers. For enterprise users requiring CI/CD integrations, customization, and live support, you need to contact support. You can find more about Zeus here. 

testRigor

testRigor is a testing solution where you write test cases in plain English. This allows non-techies to use this tool to test the application. testRigor covers 90% of test cases, as its test cases reflect real-world user interactions. 

testRigor also integrates well with CI/CD pipelines, which includes integrations with Jenkins, GitLab, Jira, Azure DevOps, and more. It has a "free forever" public plan, but you need to contact testRigor for pricing on the enterprise plan. You can find more about testRigor here. 

Mobot

As its name suggests, Mobot is a combination of mobile and robot testing. Mobot is a robot-assisted automated testing solution, meaning it uses robots to do the testing. Mobot performs tests using mechanical robotic arms that interact with the app like a real human. 

With the help of these mechanical robots, the iOS app will be tested on different physical devices. The robots can be seen in action on the Mobot homepage here. For pricing and a demo, contact the Mobot sales team . 

{{blog-cta}}

Conclusion

In this post, we've learned about the eight best iOS automated testing solutions. Most of them are automated with no programming knowledge required. But they can also be integrated with the popular frameworks Appium and Calabash if you want to write test cases.

Automated testing is important to get right, which means it's also important that you get the right testing solution. Check out Mobot to simultaneously execute your test cases across a range of physical devices and get accurate results within the same or next day. Reach out to the team to see how Mobot can take your iOS automated testing to the next level. 

This post was written by Nabendu Biswas. Nabendu has been working in the software industry for the past 15 years, starting as a C++ developer, then moving on to databases. For the past six years he’s been working as a web-developer working in the JavaScript ecosystem, and developing web-apps in ReactJS, NodeJS, GraphQL. He loves to blog about what he learns and what he’s up to.

‍