What is the best alternative to Ghostlab?

Question

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score 42 · Answer 1

Browsersync

Top Pro

Works concurrently across multiple devices

It is not constrained to a single device, it works across desktop and mobile devices at the same time. It will update code changes, synchronize scroll positions and form inputs automatically across all browsers and devices. See More

Top Con

Setting up in Windows can be a little tricky

Sometimes when setting up BrowserSync in Windows some errors will pop up. Most of the time this is because npm throws errors when trying to compile BrowserSync and some of the dependencies need Visual C++ runtime libraries. This is easily solvable by installing Visual Studio. Once it's installed, there should not be any more problems. See More

Top Pro

Synchronized form field input

When filling out a form in one browser, same information will be repeated in other browsers. See More

Top Pro

Works with basically every desktop and mobile browser

Browser-Sync has been tested to work with desktop (Chrome, Firefox, IE 7-10, Safari, Opera) and mobile (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Opera Mobile, Firefox Mobile) browsers. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Linux and OS X. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without a refresh. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under MIT. See More

Top Pro

Remembers scroll position

Remembers scroll position and synchronize it across all browsers so you don't have to move to the appropriate part of the page after each reload. See More

Top Pro

Works as a standalone npm package or as a Grunt plugin

To install as a standalone npm package npm install -g browser-sync To install as a grunt-plugin npm install grunt-browser-sync See More

Top Pro

Synchronized navigation

When navigating in one browser, other browsers will automatically follow to the same place. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require a browser plugin

BrowserSync does not require a browser plugin to be installed. This is because it serves the files directly itself, and uses a script which opens a socket between the browser and the server. See More

Top Pro

Works with older versions of IE

Browser-Sync works with all supported IE versions - IE7 and up. See More

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42 4

score 51 · Answer 2

CodeKit

Top Pro

Everything is set up for you

Everything you need to get a project started is included with CodeKit. Thanks to the professional support, different components of the workflow pipeline are guaranteed to play nicely with each other without you needing to do the research on how to configure them. More advanced features that may require extra configuration to set up with other workflow wrappers are set up out of the box in CodeKit, like automatic browser updating, linting, and source maps. See More

Top Con

Mac only

This is a major problem for larger teams that have varied development environments. See More

Top Pro

Provides a clean and modern GUI

CodeKit has a clean and intuitive graphical user interface out of the box. Most other tools in this category run as command line utilities or require unsupported third-party plugins to run with a GUI. The CodeKit GUI makes it easier to navigate and manage the various components of your project with helpful UIs like dropdowns, and views that provide extra details without having to run a separate command. See More

Top Con

Confined

You get only the tools that are provided by the application. See More

Top Pro

Live browser updating built in

CodeKit has live updating built in and will update monitored files across multiple browsers and devices, and refresh CSS without a new page load. Other workflow wrappers have live updating, but they require extra configuration. With CodeKit, everything is set up for you so you can get it up and running in no time at all. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Interactively define how files compile with a GUI

You can navigate your project directory, and use a menu form to set up how it gets compiled without needing to read configuration documentation, or deal with configuration errors. On top of that, file watching and recompilation is built in with no extra configuration needed. See More

Top Pro

Great value for money

At a one time cost of $29, it's a great deal considering how powerful and easy to use it is. See More

Top Pro

Visual package management with Bower

CodeKit provides a clean GUI for Bower that makes it easier to navigate and get information about modules without having to deal with a command line interface. See More

Top Pro

Connects with MAMP

You can use it to, for example, live-update server-side PHP by establishing a connection with your local MAMP server. See More

Top Pro

Don't have to worry about vendor prefixes due to Autoprefixer support

Autoprefixer automagically adds vendor prefixes based on latest information. See More

Top Pro

Reduces size of compressed images

CodeKit provides a powerful tool to automatically reduce the size of compressed images and production web code. See More

Top Pro

Live pre-processor and script compilation

CodeKit supports live compilation of Less, Sass, Stylus, Jade, Haml, Slim, CoffeeScript, JavaScript and Compass including automatic debugging and minification. See More

Top Pro

Has over 6k componenets

Install 6,000+ Bower components with a single click: Bootstrap, jQuery, Modernizr, Zurb Foundation, even WordPress. See More

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51 1

score 27 · Answer 3

PhantomJS

Top Con

Deprecated by Puppeteer

PhantomJS is no longer actively maintained by the original authors. Puppeteer is said to be a replacement supported and backed by the Google Chrome team, now. See More

Top Pro

Supports screen capture

Top Con

Heavy setup

You'll often end up having PhantomJS binaries connected via WebDriver to your testing framework, possibly using client/server especially if you want your test running with something else than Java. This means an overhead in terms of maintenance and performance, but still usually lighter than running a full browser (like Chrome, Firefox, IE). See More

Top Pro

Used in many open source projects

Including bootstrap, grunt, ember.js, and YUI. See More

Top Con

Browser closes unexpectedly

It often happens when running on more then 5 (my measurement) JVM instances that the browser gets stuck and quits unexpectedly. This can be partially solved by running the instances one by one instead of parallel (this is a problem when testing Jenkins and Bamboo agents) but I don't believe this qualifies as a solution. The error is called UnreachableBrowserException. See More

Top Pro

Supports many browser standards

PhantomJS has full DOM and CSS parsing, JSON, canvas, and SVG support. See More

Top Con

Elements are sometimes not visible

This is an error which occurs with almost no reason, PhantomJS sometimes decides that it cannot click the element even though the element is intractable or enabled. This happens if you have to scroll to see the element (and these are not pages that load elements with JavaScript) which is strange because PhantomJS should catch the whole page if it is not loaded explicitly with JavaScript. This problem partially goes away with re-sizing the browser, but that does not really qualify as a solution. The error it raises is: ElementNotVisibleException. See More

Top Pro

Built on WebKit

WebKit is becoming the gold standard for browser compatibility, making it a good starting point for native headless browser testing. See More

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27 2

score 18 · Answer 4

Endtest

Top Pro

It's mostly free to use

The free plan covers a lot, you can have up to 3 test suites, and you can run your automated tests as many times as you want. The pro plan includes some very advanced options that you might need only if you're working with a team (for example, the collaboration feature, schedule test run, API for Jenkins, etc.). See More

Top Con

Doesn't support a wide array of browsers and/or operating systems

Because it's still in its infancy, it doesn't yet have a huge variety of browsers and operating systems. See More

Top Pro

Codeless automated testing

Endtest allows you to create automated tests for web applications, directly on their cloud infrastructure. No coding skills are required. You can also choose the action "Execute Javascript" for a more flexible test run. See More

Top Con

Free plan has limited time storage for test suites.

If you are using the free plan, keep in mind that the test suites created there are scheduled to be deleted after around 2 weeks. Endtest will send you a notification email the day before mentioning "Test suites from users who are not on the PRO Plan get automatically deleted after some time," and offering for you to upgrade to PRO. See More

Top Pro

Running your automated tests on their cloud infrastructure

You can easily run your automated tests on their platform, just by clicking the run button. See More

Top Con

Codeless and locks you in rendering your efforts useless if you want to switch

Top Pro

Option to export your automated tests in different formats, including .EXE

You can export your automated tests in a variety of different formats, and run them on your own infrastructure. The formats are either in Python file format or executable file format (.EXE). See More

Top Pro

Now supports mobile testing

Endtest has added a new feature which now supports mobile testing for both Android and iOS (.apk and .ipa). See More

Top Pro

Now supports a wider variety of browsers, operating system and devices

As of March 2018, Endtest can now support multiple platforms (Windows, MAC, Android and iOS), Operating Systems, and more than a handful of devices for both Android and iOS. See More

Top Pro

Designed for Continuous Integration

It has an API which allows testers to run it on Jenkins or Team City. Other than that, it has a built-in test scheduler to allow testers to preset test executions. See More

Top Pro

Premium version is relatively cheaper than most in the market

Their pricing plan ($79/month or $650/year) includes team plan upgrade, which means the whole team, regardless of the number of users, will only need to subscribe to the $79/month or $650/year plan. This includes unlimited test runs, test exports, recordings, etc. See More

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18 2

score 9 · Answer 5

CasperJS

Top Pro

Allows screenshots (either the full page or parts of it) if performing UI testing

There are times where you don't want to open up a browser for screencaps, that is where CasperJS comes to use, it can render the page using its own rendering engine and take and save a screenshot for you, all via the commandline See More

Top Con

Not for unit testing but rather UI testing

These are two extremely different concepts. CasperJS should be removed from this list See More

Top Pro

Easy to understand

Top Con

Cannot guarantee 100% accurate Webkit-based browser screenshots

QtWebKit is the rendering engine used by CasperJS. Keep in mind this is NOT the same rendering engine as Chrome; hence, if you want to be 100% sure of the results, you must run a Webkit browser (such as Chrome) yourself. See More

Top Pro

Written in JavaScript

Since all webdevs know JS, the start-up time of learning the framework will be reduced to zero, as your team can be productive from day one. See More

Top Pro

Easily integrates with other applications

Due to the simplicity of the framework, not only other libraries can be built with it, but it can be integrated with any web application as well. See More

Top Pro

Can run javascript code inside pages being tested

Can execute arbitrary javascript or load external JS into the page being tested. This feature is possible due to the presence of a rendering engine, and helps you see the effects of any client side scripting during your tests. See More

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9 1

score 26 · Answer 6

Selenium

Top Pro

Integrates with any CI tool

Selenium, with its ability to interact with different testing frameworks, like NUnit or xUnit, makes it easy to get Selenium working with practically any Continuous Integration services. See More

Top Con

The IDE for recording isn't too powerful

Top Pro

Uses an approved WC3 standard - WebDriver

The WebDriver protocol is standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium which makes it easy for third-parties to get involved and contribute to Selenium. WebDriver has been the foundation of many additional automation projects besides core selenium and has become the de-facto standard for UI automation. See More

Top Con

Issues with locators

Locators that support common attributes like: name, id, XPATH, javascriptDOM, etc. have to be found through firebugs. See More

Top Pro

Actively supported

The open source community behind Selenium has a very large & engaged developer base. This ensures a stable support channel for the tool. In addition, various companies also provide support for Selenium. This active and multi-channel support provides a much more lucrative option for developers looking to implement Selenium in their workflow. See More

Top Pro

Cross-browser

Supports many browsers and a solid platform for adding future browsers to selenium (WebDriver) See More

Top Pro

You can use the same IDE you use for coding to debug

Top Pro

Integrates well with existing testing frameworks

Top Pro

Support for many languages

Selenium supports a variety of languages including Java, Python, PHP, C#, Ruby and JavaScript ensuring that the tool is easily accessible to a wide variety of developers. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Selenium is based on Java and can be run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc. See More

Top Pro

Use the very minimum amount of code required to run

Selenium tries to inject into the page only the bare minimum of code needed to run the tests. See More

Top Pro

Ability to imitate a real user using the application

Testing is analogous to a human being using the web application which is not possible with a solution which runs headless and claims to run faster than Selenium. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set preconditions for the tests

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26 3

score 2 · Answer 7

Browserlink.vim

Top Pro

Native Vim support

It's a Vim plugin, so it's natively tied to Vim itself. See More

Top Con

Only supports Vim

Supports only Vim, and works only for developers who use Vim. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Live injects CSS. This means that any time that there is a change in the CSS stylesheet, the page does not reload, only the CSS does. See More

Top Pro

Error and console support

2 0

score 12 · Answer 8

LiveReload

Top Pro

Great bundled compilers

LiveReload supports LESS, SASS, Compass, Stylus, CoffeeScript, IcedCoffeeScript, Eco, SLIM, HAML and Jade out of the box. It instantly compiles them and puts the compiled files in the specified folder. See More

Top Con

To use it, a code snippet or an extension to the browser needs to be added

To use LiveReload, a code snippet needs to be added inside the view, or an extension to be installed to the browser(s) of choice. While it's not too much work, it can be a hassle and a deal-breaker for some people. See More

Top Pro

Works with most modern browsers

LiveReload supports Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Mobile Safari and Opera with web sockets enabled. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without a refresh. See More

12 3

score 24 · Answer 9

BrowserStack

Top Pro

Good selection of developer tools

IE, FF, Safari, Chrome and Opera come with additional web development browser extensions installed, such as Firebug or YSlow. See More

Top Con

Real Apple devices are unreliable as of August 2015

Real Apple devices are a new feature that BrowserStack has introduced. At the moment (August 2015) there are unreliable. Excerpt from an email reply from BrowserStack support: we provide real iOS devices (Beta) and iOS simulators for Selenium browser testing on Automate. Since these devices are in beta, you might encounter a few problems while running tests on them. To avoid this issue, we would suggest you try running your tests on iOS simulators. See More

Top Pro

Huge variety of OSs, browsers and devices

There are over 200 desktop/mobile/tablet browser-platform combinations possible. See More

Top Con

Sessions are rejected instead of queued up when all VMs are in use

Top Pro

Easy to use UI

Top Con

Uses Android emulators for mobile testing

Top Pro

Get screenshots across many devices

Can request screenshots from many devices for comparison. See More

Top Con

May be unreliable

The same test may succeed for some users and fails for others. Apparently there are problems with the test client running on Windows. See More

Top Pro

I can easily test websites on my local development

Top Con

Re-use of VMs across different customers

Top Pro

Free JS unit tests for open-source projects

Developers are advised to use the contact form. The JavaScript API is free for open source projects. Unclear whether automated testing with Selenium is also free - apparently not? See More

Top Con

Security incident in 2014

Top Pro

Selenium automation integration

Top Con

No longer free for CodePen projects

Top Pro

Run concurrent tests in parallel

Open source project accounts are limited to at most two concurrent VMs. See More

Top Con

No Linux support

Top Pro

Might be able to test on real iOS devices

It's not very clear if real iOS devices are available for automated testing. On one hand, https://www.browserstack.com/mobile-browser-emulator is all about emulators for both Android and iOS. On the other, https://www.browserstack.com/automate says "Test across real iOS devices and Android mobile emulators" Then again, https://www.browserstack.com/list-of-browsers-and-platforms?product=automate lists "real iOS devices". See More

Top Pro

Integration with CI services

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24 23

score 1 · Answer 10

Live.js

Top Con

No cross-device support live or otherwise

Does not have support for multiple devices or multiple browsers for live reloading. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without reloading the whole page. See More

Top Pro

Multiple browser support

Live.js has multiple browser support, it supports Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE6+. Basically almost all the browsers that are currently in use. See More

Top Pro

Easy setup

Setting up Live.js is extremely easy, the developer either adds the live.js script inside their page, or if they want to monitor only CSS changes, they can add the bookmark that is found on the Live.js homepage. See More

1 1

score 10 · Answer 11

CrossBrowserTesting

Top Con

Slow and unstable.

Top Pro

Automate browser extension testing

Can automate tests for Chrome and Firefox extensions using Selenium. See More

Top Con

Not a sponsor of the Selenium project

Top Pro

Free manual testing for CodePen projects

Put your code on CodePen and you can manually test it with CBT from the "Choose a View menu". See More

Top Con

Can't change physical iOS device orientation

All iOS devices are physical and arranged in portrait mode. Emulators/simulators and Android devices can change their orientation via a button or keyboard combination. See More

Top Pro

Uses real browsers, not emulators

CBT uses real, physical devices for live (manual tests). Check the pictures on their blog post. Automated tests use real Android devices (Nexus, Galaxy) and iPad and iPhone simulators. See More

Top Con

Very slightly misleading Selenium examples / documentation

The Selenium WebDriver script examples, by default, don't explain what to put in browser_api_name and os_api_name. This leads to an UnknownError: Invalid browser_api_name / os_api_name combination specified error, if you just copy and paste the script. Instead, first select an OS and browser combination, and the script wizard will fill in the '?'s for you. See More

Top Pro

Community / forum

Only 350 users, likely because the Forum isn't linked prominently in the top nav menu and because it uses a crappy engine. See More

Top Con

Typos in the documentation

"relavent", "retreive" See More

Top Pro

Record videos

Record videos of a URL in the browser/OS combination manually or automatically via the API. See More

Top Pro

Screenshot comparisons

Automated screenshot comparisons report differences in layout. Manual side-by-side comparison also available. See More

Top Pro

Selenium testing

Selenium automation for mobile and desktop browsers, using scripts easily recoded with Selenium Builder. See More

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10 17

score 7 · Answer 12

Sauce Labs

Top Con

Very slow

Can take several minutes to start a VM, which is much worse than competitors See More

Top Pro

Huge variety of OSs, browsers and devices

There are over 300 desktop/mobile/tablet browser-platform combination possible. See More

Top Con

Graphical artifacts

Frequent screen tearing and other graphical artifacts make it harder to use. See More

Top Pro

Test on Real Devices

Sauce bought Test Object and now offers automated and manual testing on real devices in public and private clouds. See More

Top Pro

Selenium automation integration

Top Pro

Integration with CI services

Top Pro

VMs are destroyed after each session

No danger of data leaking to other users who might be using the VM, unlike with BrowserStack See More

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7 17

score 2 · Answer 13

TestingBot

Top Pro

Runs Selenium tests

Top Con

Uses mobile emulators instead of real devices

Unlike CrossBrowserTesting, TestingBot uses mobile emulators. See More

Top Pro

Manual testing

Top Pro

Appium support

Top Pro

Free for 100 minutes

Free accounts receive 100 minutes free manual testing, paid accounts have unlimited manual testing minutes. See More

Top Pro

Pristine VM for each test

TestingBot guarantees a fresh, untouched virtual machine for every test, unlike with browserstack See More

Top Pro

Allows testing both manually and automatically in several browsers and platforms

You can test your website both manually and automatically with TestingBot in different browsers and platforms. See More

Top Pro

Secure tunnel for testing code locally

Top Pro

Run tests in parallel

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2 7

score 0 · Answer 14

CSS refresh

Top Con

Only for CSS

CSS refresh only watches for .css file changes. It does not watch for JavaScript or HTML updates. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without refreshing the whole page. Only the CSS is changed. See More

Top Pro

Easy setup

To use CSSrefresh, all that is needed is to include the small .js file or to use the bookmark provided by the CSSrefresh page. See More

0 1

score 0 · Answer 15

Adobe Edge Inspect CC

Top Con

No longer developed

As of November 2015, Adobe is no longer developing Edge Inspect. See More

Top Pro

Remote code inspection

Inspect uses winre to debug and inspect the code on remote devices connected to it. It allows for DOM manipulation and provides a JavaScript console. See More

Top Con

Requires a lot of additional software to be installed

Adobe Edge Inspect requires at the bare minimum, the Edge Inspect itself to be installed and a Chrome extension, just to get live-reloading and syncing for desktop. For mobile it requires additional apps to be installed from the Play Store or the App Store. See More

Top Pro

Synchronization is very fast

The rendering across different browsers and devices is fast and accurate. See More

Top Con

Not free

It's free only for those who have an existing Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Otherwise it needs to be purchased. Although there is a free trial. See More

Top Pro

Setup is easy

Setting up Adobe Edge Inspect is rather easy. The Edge Inspect application itself is needed for desktop and a chrome plugin. For mobile devices, there is the Adobe Edge Inspect mobile app which needs to be installed. Once the Inspect program is "switched on", it will start watching all devices that have Edge Inspect enabled. For mobile devices, the Inspect app will generate an authentication code which needs to be inserted into the Chrome plugin. Once that's done, the devices are synchronized. See More

0 1

score 0 · Answer 16

Reloadr

Top Pro

Server-side PHP support

Reloadr has a reloadr.php file included, which when configured, monitors and .php file in the project folder. Once a .php file is updated, reloadr automatically reloads the page. See More

Top Con

No cross-device support

Reloadr does not support cross-device testing and live reloading. See More

Top Pro

Easy setup

Setting up Reloadr is rather easy. There are only two files that need to be included in the project folder, then the reloadr.js needs to be loaded in the view and the method to run Reloadr needs to be called. After that, everything is set up and ready to go. See More

0 1